


Harvest Festival

by Stressedspidergirl



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Alcohol, Bathing/Washing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Smut, F/M, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Smut, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Pining, Sharing a Bed, Smut, Threesome - F/M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:15:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 37,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23655211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stressedspidergirl/pseuds/Stressedspidergirl
Summary: During the Harvest Festival at the end of fall, Yennefer agrees to meet Geralt at a small town near the border of Temeria. As always, Dandelion is with him, planning on playing at the festival.Geralt goes along because there's a monster killing people in the town. He needs some things for a hunt. He's out of coin, and hasn't much to give.Yennefer and Dandelion take care of him, and they enjoy the festival together. The bad guys get theirs, and the monster gets killed and the story ends on a high note.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 62
Kudos: 143





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have never written anything this R rated before. It was weird. It's unbeta'd. FYI.  
> So, there's implied non-con, but it's not directly written in because that squicks me beyond reason.  
> I don't know who all's read the books, but apparently sorcerers in the "old days" had a sort of arrangement with their apprentices.... that... let's just say Platonic love comes from the cessation of that kind of thing. Ick. So, I mostly used a lot of book canon, mixed it around a little. Based their personalities a little more on the show.  
> Also a lot of sorceresses seem to want to figure out why Yen likes Geralt so much, and say the weirdest things about him in one of the books, and he is deeply unhappy about it. Whole thing with a hedgehog, just... I went with that. Seems like he can't go anywhere without getting threatened with assault. 
> 
> Yen and Dandelion hate each other in the books initially, and sort of get over it, so I did the same thing here. Kind of an enemies to lovers almost sort of deal. I promise the story ends just made of fluff and happiness.  
> Unbeta'd, sorry.

When Geralt stumbles back into the inn, Dandelion rises up from his seat, mouth open when he sees the state the other man is in. He sets down his lute and gives the crowd the universal ‘just a moment’ gesture. “Geralt, are you alright?” the man’s clothes are disheveled and torn, there’s blood and spit dribbling down the corners of his mouth, and his eyes won’t focus. “Sit, Geralt, sit down.”

“Don’t want to,” he says roughly, pushing the bard away weakly.

“Alright, then don’t,” he agrees, catching Geralt by the chin to try and get a better look at him. The silvery whiteish fluid all over the other man isn’t, as the bard had initially supposed, monster fluid. Or at least, not the kind of monster Geralt is willing to slay.

“Poisoned me,” he complains roughly, trying to figure out how to get somewhere safe he can rest. The common room of the tavern seeming like a less than ideal location for that.

“Barkeep,” Dandelion says, and sees the man unwilling to meet his eyes. “Can you get someone to escort him to the bathing chambers? And reassure the patrons I will play an extra set once my companion is settled? And…I’ll play again tomorrow, for all I hadn’t intended to. I think I have an emetic in my bags-“

There’s a small clink as the man shamefacedly sets a small flacon down on the counter. “Take this. It won’t hurt him none. Other than to make him puke it all up.”

“This happens quite often, I take it,” he sees the man beckon two women over who gently shepherd Geralt from the room. He seems confused, and twists back to look at Dandelion helplessly.

“Until it wears off, he’s prone to suggestion,” the man warns. “Be careful what you say.”

Dutifully warned, his heart thunders in his chest as he picks up the flacon. Then goes back to his seat to grab up his lute. “Dear patrons, it seems my travelling companion was accosted. Let me put him to rights and I’ll play here again, tomorrow, for double the time! Think of your requests and leave them with the barkeep. If I don’t know it, I’ll try and learn it!” With a few dramatic flourishes and strums of the lute, he exits without making anyone too angry. The lute is left in the care of the sympathetic barkeep and his maids, and Dandelion half runs down the hallway to check on Geralt.

One woman is still standing with him, gently patting his shoulder. He looks distressed but seems less so when he sees a familiar face.

“Is there a bucket we can use?” he asks.

“There’s many here,” she tells him, confused.

“No, I right think he’s going to sick up, and don’t want to ruin a good bucket.”

“Oh, I see, I’ll be back,” she gives Geralt a little smile and leaves quickly.

“Let’s get you out of those clothes, first,” Dandelion says gently, and starts undoing the fastenings of Geralt’s shirt. “Where’s your armor?”

“Didn’t…I’m not…” he shakes his head, trying to clear it. “I don’t feel right,” he complains, words slightly slurred.

“Oh, trust me, I can tell,” he seethes at the bruises he sees. “What the bloody hell did they want you for, anyway?” He thinks he already knows. In fact, he’s sure of it.

“Yennefer’s not here?” Geralt asks in a hopeful voice.

“Not yet, but if she told you she’d be here, she will. And I hope she has some answers for her us about her despicable brethren.”

“Won’t be the first time,” the witcher mutters and the bard stares. He doesn’t help much in the process of getting his clothes off, too out of it to be able to. When it comes to his pants he stiffens miserably, trying to turn away from the bard. “They did something to me,” he repeats.

“I know.”

“You don’t know fuck all,” he tries to turn away again.

“Geralt, hold still, dammit,” Dandelion complains. When he does, the bard feels horrible. “What else did they do, that you’re so determined to hide?”

“Spell? Not sure, I got, I got what I needed,” he says and Dandelion blinks and his mouth drops. Until Geralt holds up a pouch he’s pulled from his pocket. “To get the monster. Haven’t been paid yet, because I haven’t killed it, and I needed, I needed…my head hurts.”

“I suppose it does,” he gently takes the pouch and stuffs it into his own pocket, where it should be safer. If nothing else, he isn’t covered in grime. “Well, I can bathe you in your pants, if you’d like, but can I get your boots off?”

“Can’t balance,” Geralt tells him roughly, voice low and gravelly in his throat, like it’s sore.

“That’s alright, you just hold onto my shoulders, can you do that?” he asks and notices a few things he’s sure Geralt was trying to hide. The smell of blood, for one, and then two, he bulges against his pants, and the bard is fairly sure it’s some kind of spell or potion. While he knows the witcher is vaguely resistant to magic, he’s not resistant to everything. “Your Yennefer should be here soon, and I’m sure she can manage whatever’s happening.”

Geralt rests his hands on Dandelion’s shoulders for balance as the bard pulls up one leg and sets his boot on his knee before working loose the fastenings and pulling it off, then the other.

“Are you sure about your pants? You’ve told me you don’t like wet fabric.”

“Won’t stop,” he informs Dandelion vaguely.

“Yes, I can see that, I promise I will leave it be,” he promises delicately. “I highly doubt in your state is remotely voluntary.”

“Hurts,” Geralt specifies.

“I won’t touch it,” he clarifies, seeing that he needs to be more precise. “And I certainly won’t be mocking you for it, either. They did you dirty, they did. I will be killing them all, once I can figure out how to do it without getting myself killed, in the process.”

“I let them,” Geralt coughs. “That was the price. No coin, pay in experiments. They wanted to know.”

“Know what?”

“What it was like,” he grunts. “Hurts and won’t stop,” he paws vaguely at himself, and Dandelion takes his hands.

“Enough, we’ll figure it out. Clean first, then we’ll figure the rest out. Yennefer will be here, and she can hopefully undo whatever this is.”

The maid comes back in with a metal bucket, sturdy but rusting. “Will this do?”

“Indeed, thank you.”

“Do you need his clothes washed, sir?”

“We will, where should I leave them?”

“I can take them now,” she offers.

“He’s being somewhat difficult,” Dandelion tells her. “I have his shirt, boots, and stockings, I’ll see if I can get his pants, if it’s alright to do it in two passes.”

“That’s fine, I’ll get the rest to soaking. Well, not the boots, sir. Those I’ll just brush.”

“Thank you,” he hands her Geralt’s clothes with a coin. She smiles and gives him a slight curtsy.

“I’ll be back in a little while, hopefully enough time to convince him he’ll feel better if he bathes properly.”

Dandelion gives her a smile, and thinks that in the past, he would have made sure to find her rooms later. Her dimple is simply perfect. “Give us some time, and if a horrible woman with black hair and a black and white dress comes looking, direct her here. It’s better she gets what she wants as soon as she wants it. The minute you see her, mind, wherever he is, send her there. If he’s up in the room, send her there. Trust me.”

“His woman?”

“She wouldn’t see it that way, I’d much say he’s her man, instead. But yes, she’s quite possessive, and since she’s late as it is, I would imagine her mood will not be ideal. She tips well, though, for good service. So you can expect that, at least, I suspect.”

“Will she be angry with him? You should tell her… you should tell her that, sometimes,” the maid looks away. “Sometimes there isn’t much choice in it. They pick and choose. Usually not people with women or men to come looking after them like it seems she will. Or you.”

Oddly touched she cares; he suspects it’s the caring that comes from experience. “Well, I would hazard many guesses after choosing this one,” he stops to take Geralt’s hands again for a moment, watching a minute to make sure the witcher doesn’t just keel over. “They won’t be choosing more.”

“Or perhaps she’ll go into the castle and not come out. At least the witcher came out. The master says to tell you that your room and board is free for the next few days, until he recovers. Then, he says, provided he kills the monster, he’s welcome to another night or two. Especially if he’s injured. And you’ll play the nights you’re here. People like knowing that a famous bard plays while they eat their supper.”

“Thank you.”

“I hope he kills it. And I hope you’re right about his woman.” With that, she ducks out of the room, clothes bundled in her arms.

“Now, may I please have your pants?” he demands, and Geralt looks at him blearily. “If you take them off, I can get you into the nice hot water, where you can soak all you like. Does that sound like a good trade off?” He’d never thought he’d be caring for Geralt like he might a child. They’d gotten into scrapes, and usually Geralt was more lucid. Or in control enough of his own faculties to be obnoxious and venomous rather than confused and compliant.

“I can’t get them off,” he informs Dandelion irritably.

“I can, if you’ll stop telling me not to.”

“I would like to get into the bath,” he admits.

“Alright then,” Dandelion says placidly. He’s so angry, but not at Geralt. “What did they give you, do you know?”

“Mixed it with something,” he explains helpfully as Dandelion works his pants loose and then pushes them down.

“Yes, I know they mixed it with something. Do you know any of the ingredients?” he asks, also carefully pulling down Geralt’s underclothes. “Oh, I see it does hurt. Hopefully it’ll go away on its own, that’s much too painful for you to be tugging,” he breathes in shock. “Did they do this to you?”

“We… we did a lot of things together,” he says vaguely, and Dandelion nods sagely. Because clearly he’s getting no where with any of this.

“Drink this, and here’s a lovely bucket, and then we’ll get you into the water.”

“Drink what?”

“It’ll help get rid of that awful feeling. We’ll empty your stomach, and then I’ll get you something to eat that will help soothe your belly.”

“Always take care of me,” Geralt tells him, drinking the contents down, and then grimacing. “That’s awful. You trying to poison me, too?” he asks, hurt.

“No, well, at least not in the long-term way that they did,” Dandelion shrugs. Technically an emetic is a sort of poison, he thinks. Forces you to spew your guts up all over. Gently reaching up to gather all of Geralt’s hair into his hand, the effects are almost instantaneous. He’d been right to immediately reach. The poor witcher bends over the bucket miserably and heaves up what smells like ale and something rotten. “Up it comes, you’ll feel better soon. I know your witcher constitution means your body can work through most poisons, but I’ve seen you under the effects of what was it, white scorpion venom? That was miserable for you for a good day or so. Even if you survived it and shook off the general ‘desired’ effects rather quickly,” he rambles, trying to distract himself and Geralt from the retching. “There we are, that’s the start to being better sooner, it’s all up now. Whatever isn’t already working its way out of your system, at least. Into the bath now, don’t you think?”

With Dandelion’s help, he manages to get first one leg, and then the other, into the tub. It’s large enough he can stretch his legs out. He tugs uselessly at his cock a few times, miserable. It does no good, nothing had done any good. He can’t remember why they did that, or if it’s just a side effect of the poison. Potion? Spell? Why had they wanted his cock hard? And more importantly, why won’t it stop? A curse, perhaps?

Dandelion starts wiping the blood and fluids from his face gently, and he tries to pull one of the bard’s hands down to his groin. “No, we’re not doing that right now. It’s so red as it is, I can’t imagine how you’d stand the pain of it.” There are bruises on Geralt’s wrists, he notices, and his arms, along his hips, stomach, and when he manages to get Geralt to lean forward, he sees evidence of bruising down his back. “Stand up love, let me finish up here, and then you can soak,” he offers, helping Geralt back up. Indignant at how red the other man’s backside is, he notices blood in-between his legs. When he reaches to find the source, Geralt’s entire body twitches.

“Don’t” he says, sounding almost like himself.

“Did they, did they do what I think they did?” Dandelion asks him, voice soft with horror.

“And more besides, I’m sure,” Geralt groans, twisting to try and look.

“Will you let me run a cloth over you, at least?”

“It’s not the first time,” he tells Dandelion quietly. “I knew, what they were asking, and I gave it freely.”

“No, you didn’t, you gave it for a pouch of magical nonsense, and for their sake everything you wanted plus extra had best be in there. They also drugged you so bad you weren’t sure which way was up, which isn’t typically part of a nice exchange of goods and services. You still haven’t answered my question.”

“You may, but,” his voice drops and cuts out. “Please,” he isn’t sure how to ask.

“I’ll be careful. I don’t have any intention of hurting you.” He’s unsurprised when the cloth comes away bloody, but there’s not a lot, at least. Already healing, perhaps, or barely torn. He knows the other unspoken question and keeps his body to the side of Geralt’s so he can see the bard isn’t looking at the injury, either. “After, if you’re still bleeding, I will need to see. You can’t go around hunting monsters while bleeding. At least until after you’ve found it. No sense in letting it get the drop on you. I have plenty of salves to stop minor bleeds.” He wipes up the witcher’s legs gently and helps him ease back into the water.

“Nothing I’ve done has fixed this,” he says miserably.

“I also have some creams for chafing and other things, not meant, of course, for this kind of situation. But it might bring you some relief. Here, close your eyes, I’ll rinse out your hair.” He takes his time working soap through the white strands, restoring them to their soft snowy glory. Sadly, he watches Geralt’s face, sees the tears at the corners of his mouths and bruising on his lips and knows exactly what was done to achieve that. Dandelion presses a gentle kiss to Geralt’s forehead and then again has to pull his hands away from his tortured groin. “It’s not going to help, or it would have already.”

“It hurts,” Geralt repeats. “Like it might burst, so it looks like my options are coming down to this: keep trying or cut it off.”

“We will not be cutting it off. Just hold on until Yennefer arrives.” Hopefully soon, he adds mentally.

“Perhaps if you did it?” he asks hopefully.

“Yes, well, I can’t say as I’m comfortable touching you when you’re stuffed to the gills with drugs and potions. Much less after they’ve abused you.”

“It was willing,” Geralt tells him. Dandelion half wishes he could use the bucket, too. It was anything but, as far as he’s concerned.

“They beat you while they were at it, was that really willing?” he asks, considering the bruises and lines across his companion’s backside.

“I let them,” Geralt repeats softly. The water ripples and Dandelion curses softly and takes Geralt’s hands again. He watches as the witcher cocks his head to the side, listening intently and sighs at the soft little smile he gets after. Yennefer must be near. Nostrils flare as he breathes deeper. “She’ll think I got drunk,” he says, almost crestfallen.

“No, she won’t. Anyone with half a brain can see you’ve been poisoned. And as much as I can’t stand to admit it, she’s anything but stupid.”

The maid from before leads the sorceress in, and also takes up the rest of Geralt’s clothing from the bard along with another small coin. She bobs her head and exits swiftly, heeding the earlier warning from the bard about the woman. Dandelion had not been wrong, Yennefer had tipped her well for being taken straight to the baths while her things were taken up to the witcher’s room.

“Do you know what happened?” she asks, going over to kneel by the tub. Geralt gives her a bit of a vapid smile. Her expression softens briefly, and she kisses his cheek.

“Oh, me, you’re talking to me? I didn’t know that was something we did, talk. I know he went up to meet some of your fellows for help with a hunt. He had some monsters he needed to deal with. They demanded coin, as your brethren does -heaven forbid you bastards just help anyone unless it directly benefits you-” he knows full well that while Geralt pretends that it’s all about the money for him, it isn’t. He’s refused payment many a time or changed his prices to be what someone could afford. “So, since he had no coin, they took it out of his arse,” he snaps at her. As if this is all somehow her fault. “And not only did they choose to do it that way, they chose to hurt him, and poison him while they are at it!”

Yennefer’s eyes glow with blue fire, and her fingertips crackle with red energy for a minute, and the bard feels a moment of fear. “Did they?” she asks Geralt softly. Then slips cool fingers under his chin and lifts his face so she can see better. She inspects his mouth, and then looks him over. There’s a little blood in the water, and she touches a spot on his neck Dandelion had missed, looking at her fingers. Her face is expressionless, but her eyes seem to glow with hate. “Looks like they took it out of him in more than one place,” she glances over at Dandelion. “Geralt, what did they give you, do you know?”

“I can’t remember, they told him to drink the ale,” he tells her, “Yen, they did something else to me, and it won’t stop,” he tells her unhappily, obviously humiliated. He’s been ashamed since she walked in, and before, she knows. She has to work a bit to read his mind but can’t help but read his moods.

“Will you let me in? See if I can figure out what they did to you?”

“It’s all a blur,” he confesses. “Before you try, tell me you can fix this,” he indicates his body below the water.

“I’m sure I can. I have to know what’s causing it first, and I know it’s not because you’re pleased to see me. I will fix it. You will recover all your faculties, and we’ll get you into bed soon,” she reassures him. “That vomit smell, I take it that’s his?”

“Yes,” Dandelion tells her, quietly.

She gets up to look, unsurprised to see it looks like Geralt’s stomach was mostly empty. They hadn’t bothered to feed him first. Just hurt him. “Well, I think I recognize some of the elements of the poison. He’s immune to most of it when it’s separate. And he’s thrown up what he can,” her voice is brisk. Then she comes back over and takes his hands, pulling them away from his body. “Stop that,” she chides. “It’s going to be purple and unusable for days if you don’t leave it alone. I won’t heal it, either,” she threatens, kissing his knuckles.

“Please,” he breathes.

“Let me in, let me see,” she tells him just as softly. He nods, once, fixing his gaze on hers. His pupils are still uneven, but that hardly matters.

Images barrage her, he hadn’t been lying it really all is a blur. Snippets of conversation race past, and she can’t hold onto all of it. There’s no mention of the ingredients to the poison, but the smell of some venoms isn’t overcome by ale nor vomit.

_“No human hands can end it,” the wizard crows, laughing delightedly. “You’ll have to find another monster, even less human than you are.” “Horrible brute, not much good for anything but killing and fucking. As much as he’s used by others, all I’d heard, this is a bit of a letdown. I’d expected more.”_

“I’ve got it,” she says, immediately breaking away. “That’s fine, we don’t need hands, or bodies for that. We do need you upstairs and in bed, but it’s easily broken. Whoresons,” she complains.

“Fix it now, please, I can’t bear to keep walking around like this,” he looks at her. And she gets glimpses of the mockery he’d suffered as he’d staggered out and tried to find his way back to the bard.

“Just up one flight of stairs. You’ll thank me. I have some things in my pack that we need, and then you can go to bed right after.”

“Yen-“

“I’m not doing it to spite you, I swear to you.” She picks up a spare cloth and dips it into the water to gently go back over his neck and chest. She kisses his bruised lips and he sighs against her. “Come upstairs, can you walk now?” she asks. “I assume you were walking before, but now that you’ve had time to sit it might be different.”

“I can get up,” he says. With the bard’s help, his words become truth and he manages to get to his feet.

“Did you bring him a change of clothes?”

“I rather forgot,” the bard groans. “I saw him and had him escorted here and his clothes taken for washing. I didn’t even think that far ahead.”

“Will you go fetch them now? I’ll get him dry.”

“I’m right here, Yen,” he says reproachfully.

“They really did take it out of your arse,” she curses, looking over the bruising that runs from his shoulders down to almost the backs of his knees.

“I didn’t want them, physically. I let them, but it wasn’t the same. They wanted me to play along better,” he explains to her matter-of-factly. “Probably why they added the curse. I couldn’t pretend it was you. You’d never hurt me like that,” he says quietly.

Yennefer impulsively hugs him, feeling a moment of annoyance with herself when she realizes she’s soaked the front of her dress. It’s worth it when he hugs her back, and she can feel his hands tremble against her back. “Let’s get you dry, and over by the fire so you stay warm.” She highly doubts it’ll take that long to find a suitable shirt and pair of pants, but with Dandelion in charge, who knows. “At least he had the sense to purge your stomach,” she tells Geralt, stroking his cheek. She wraps a towel around his waist before encouraging him to move closer to the fire. In spite of the warm water, he’s freezing. Helping him settle on the bench, she winces thinking about how it must hurt to sit. While she could have magicked away all the water on his body, she doesn’t plan to use any unless it’s necessary. She has things to do once she’s done settling him here, and she’ll need all of her abilities at full strength.

“Sit on your hands if you have to,” she informs him as she towels his hair dry gently, working the cloth over his arms and chest before using it to dry his legs. He stands up when Dandelion walks back in with clothes, and she sees bits of red soaking into the towel. When she pulls it away, she sighs. “We missed a spot, it seems,” and gently runs the towel up the back of his legs and over his backside and lower back. She knows full well where the blood is coming from and is trying to hide that she knows.

“Is he still bleeding?” Dandelion asks, ruining it.

“Yes,” she says wearily.

“It’s probably nothing,” Geralt shrugs. “Just the water mixing with a drop or two.”

“We’ll see when we get upstairs,” she tells him, clenching her fists so that the orange and red dancing around her fingertips dies away.

He tugs on first his pants, then his shirt, and offers her his arm. She allows him to escort her, with the bard leading the way. She sees the maid again and tells Geralt to go up without her. Dandelion wraps an arm around his middle and helps him.

“We’ll need food sent up, broth, something with flavor, but not much else. Good fresh bread if you have it. Not too much seeds,” she tries to think of other simple fare most places should have. “And then a bit of meat and hard cheese, if you have it,” she says. “A few apples,” she thinks of the bard. He should be fine with meat and cheese; she isn’t hungry she’d already eaten on the road. She proffers a silver coin. “Fruit juice, if it can be found, too, please.”

“Yes’m,” the maid bobs, the coin disappears, and she does seconds after.

Yennefer knows that making the cooks fuss about will cost the maid some of her tips, but hopefully it will be worth it. And the extra coin will buy them speedier service. She makes her way up the stairs, working to master her anger. It is not easy, and she knows that if she can hold back now, she can unleash it later. But her plans must be perfect, and meticulous. There’s more of them than her, and she recognized a few of them from Geralt’s memories. One known for using his apprentices far too often, and too hard. The practice had mostly fallen away, but some of the older ones still kept it up, whether the apprentice was willing or not.

At the top of the stairs, she considers something. She has to be gentle with him. And she can’t antagonize the bard too much, for all she loathes him. Seeing how he’s taking care of Geralt, she loathes him a bit less. And she’d just realized, quite on accident, he loves the witcher as much as she does. She half wonders if Geralt’s aware, or if he reciprocates the feelings. She wouldn’t mind the arrangement, if he wanted to sleep with the bard while they travelled together, provided when she was around, he slept with only her. Much how she and Geralt have managed over the past decade or two.

Dandelion is fussing with him in the room, and he’s steadfastly refusing to cooperate. The bard wants him in bed, trying to rest and the witcher very much does not want to be in the bed. He’s miserable, and can’t do a damn thing about his cock, and the pants hurt, but he doesn’t want to be exposed, and he doesn’t want to sit on the bed, his backside aches, and if Yennefer would just – there.

“Already fighting like children?” she asks, looking over her nails. “You can lie down or sit down, all the same to me, but it’ll be harder standing.”

“I can’t imagine anything’ll make it harder,” he says bitterly.

She sighs and bites her lip so she doesn’t snap at him. She roots around her in bag for a few moments and pulls out a small vial of oil. “Geralt, do you want him to stay or leave?”

“What’re you doing to do?” he asks her.

“Break the curse, and of course, do something about how raw you’ve gone ahead and made yourself.”

“I didn’t do it all myself,” he complains irritably.

“I know, I well know you didn’t get yourself into this willingly no matter what comes out of your mouth!” she snaps at him, then takes a breath, closing her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she tells him a moment after. “You have to take your pants off, and I am going to find the source of the bleeding I saw earlier. Does he stay or go?”

“He can stay,” Geralt says, subdued. He aches and he’d rather not think about it and letting her treat any of it means he has to think about it. He looks at the bard beseechingly. Dandelion walks over to him and gently pats his shoulder.

“I won’t watch, but I’ll be close,” he promises, hoping that’s what the helpless expression had meant. He’d never seen it before, at least not on the Witcher. He settles himself at the small table and is mindful not to touch any of Yennefer’s things. He’s half afraid she means to fuck the witcher with him in the room, and he’d rather not have any part of that.

“I’m going to change, too,” she tells him, hoping that will encourage him to remove the relevant items of clothing. She pulls something from her bags, soft and violet like her eyes, and undoes her top, back to the bard, and then pulls the simple nightgown over her head. It’s a simple matter after that to undress underneath it. It had been a gift from Geralt, years back. Usually he’d had the sense to keep to both her style and color preferences, but this was different. It had been a miserable winter. He’d gone off on a hunt and come back to her covered in new bruises and scars, very little extra coin, and this in his saddlebags.

It was unlike any fabric she’d ever seen before, and he’d been quite unwilling to give up his source. She hadn’t pried, some things were fine as secrets. It doesn’t cling to her much, there’s nothing about it that screams sex, but the material is so soft she understands why he chose it. It’s warm in winter, cool in summer, and it’s always the softest thing she’s ever owned. If only it had been black and white, she’d wear it a bit more.

He smiles when he notices her in it, and she smiles back. He’s divested himself of his pants and is standing stiffly, waiting for her. “Forgot one thing,” she tells him, turning back to reach into her bags and pull out another small jar. “There,” she promises, and steps up to him, kissing him gently. “What first?”

“Oh, thank Melitele,” he mumbles, raising his eyes to the ceiling. “Please, please make this stop,” he whispers, gesturing to his abused cock.

“Alright,” she assures him gently. “Lie down.” No human hands. Well, if nothing else this proves he’s human. He can’t do it himself. Hers won’t work if the other sorcerers couldn’t manage to clear the curse either, using him how they did. No part of her will do him much good, she’s far less monstrous than the ones who did this. She doesn’t need hands. Or a body, or much of anything.

“Do you remember the winter you gave this to me?” she asks, and he strokes a hand up her arm, enjoying the texture of the fabric. Sometimes it reminds her of suede, but it moves almost like silk. There’s a velvet texture to it, she swears, at times, but she still has no idea what it is. With a soft pop, she uncorks the small vial and pours the oil into her palm. It barely fills the hollow her cupped hand makes.

“It was the only color,” he reminds her, but she knows the apology is insincere.

“This might feel disagreeable for a minute, but it’ll feel better after,” she tells him, looking over his raw and chafed skin. She leans over and kisses him gently before bringing her palm to meet his groin. She carefully works the oil over all the reddened skin, and he groans. She wasn’t wrong, it stings. He hadn’t realized how dry and chafed everything was, given how swollen and horrid he’d felt. She doesn’t keep stroking, and he doesn’t know what her plan is, at all. She only touches him enough to spread the oil around. He breathes deeply and is unsurprised to smell a bit of chamomile, aloe, witch hazel, and some other things he can’t name.

“Do you remember, what we did that night? Almost the whole night?” she presses.

“Yes,” he tells her, meeting her eyes in confusion.

“Do you remember how I stroked you, so softly you could barely feel it? You dented the wood of the headboard you gripped it so hard to stop yourself from taking over.” She has no desire to tie him up, and it wouldn’t matter anyway, he’d break through whatever he chose other than shackles. “My palm swirling over the head of your cock? Remember,” she instructs him, and says a few words in the Elder Tongue, as if casting a spell. “It was snowing, we were trapped indoors in what amounted to a hut. But it was snug, and warm, and I teased you for hours until you came from it.” It had honestly been far less than hours but to him it had felt an eternity. Not that he’d minded. Her lips are by his ear, her voice barely above a whisper. He can hear her, and that’s all that matters.

His hips twitch and he moans softly. “We’ll break this spell by doing the same thing, won’t we?” she encourages him, and rests a hand against his cheek as she kisses him for a few seconds, prying into his mind enough to know he is back in that hut on that paillasse with her. Her lips tickle his ear as she keeps whispering to him, reminding him of each touch, and thrust, and experience they’d shared in that hut together while the snow and wind swirled around them. He grips her arm, his other hand fisted into the bedclothes, as he breathes raggedly.

She glances once at the bard, who is doing his best to occupy himself reorganizing his saddlebags. He’d said he’d stay, and so he’s saying. Even if he is burning with jealousy at whatever they’re doing. When he feels eyes on his back he turns once, and sees Yennefer isn’t even touching Geralt, and she gives him a look he can’t interpret. Perhaps she knows. She’ll use it to hurt him if she can, if she does, and there’s nothing more to it than that. He looks away, recoiling spare strings and tucking them into a waterproofed pouch.

A few kisses along Geralt’s jaw, and then a bit more whispering, and encouraging, and he climaxes. It’s not much, he hadn’t had much to give, he’d been in so much pain. Other than a gasping sigh of relief, he doesn’t make much noise, and she kisses his lips gently. He’d be red if he could be, she knows.

“Oh, thank fuck,” he mumbles miserably, glancing down. Then he looks at her unhappily. “How many days do you think I’m going to hurt from this?”

“None if the oil does its work,” she promises. “You’re already far less red,” she reassures him. Another trip to the table and she comes back with a handkerchief and a water basin. She uses it to gently clean him up again. “Roll over, so we can finish this, and you can put some clothes on.”

“What spell did you use?” he asks her quietly.

“I didn’t, the power of suggestion was strong enough. The bastard who cast it, his idea was that no human hands -or body parts- would end it. You could have rubbed it right off and you’d still be stuck with nothing else to do to fix the curse. Or I could see if your memory was strong enough to bring you through it,” she gives him a catlike self-satisfied smile and kisses him. “It was. The curse is broken. Now, please roll over for me.”

A knock at the door interrupts them, and she pulls a blanket up to his waist. Usually, he’s not too fussy about things, but with three of them in the room and the way he’s feeling she’d rather spare him if possible. The maid bobs when Dandelion lets her in, a tray of food in her hands. She carefully sets it on the table and exits. Yennefer makes a note to tip her again in the morning, seeing as how she hadn’t stuck around with her hand out waiting. The girl hadn’t even looked around or acted curious. Perhaps she wouldn’t mind moving on, to work in Vengerberg instead. A good maid is hard to find.

“Here, look, there’s food, so let’s just get this over with,” she promises. He won’t look at her but rolls over obediently and she finds she can’t bring herself to touch him. There are a few drops of blood on the bed under him where he’d been, but he’s right it’s not serious. Still no reason to let him keep bleeding. “Would you rather do it yourself?” she asks, holding the little jar in his line of sight. He shakes his head, muscles rigid. His hands clench the blanket over the mattress to stop them from shaking. It’s humiliation and anger, she knows, not fear. Well, perhaps fear of her reaction, or of this being used against him later, and she resolves that while they will probably fight again, and say horrible things, she won’t use this to hurt him. Not that she could have ever used something like this.

“You have to relax enough I can see, I don’t actually know where you’re bleeding from, even if I have an educated guess,” she tells him carefully, making sure to lean in and keep her voice soft.

“I can’t relax,” he tells her. “Could you?”

“Bard come take his hands,” she demands. Dandelion looks at her in surprise but comes over and gently laces his fingers into Geralt’s. The witcher has to shift onto his side for both of them to be comfortable, but in that time his muscles aren’t completely locked. Yennefer takes advantage of his distraction and blots away the blood and applies salve in record time, barely leaving him time to clench up all over until it’s over.

Surprised, but deeply humiliated, he watches her as she seals the lid on the small pot again and puts it away with her things. She adds something to the tray, rinses her hands in the washbasin, and then brings the tray over to the bed. Picking up another tiny little pot, it looks to him like one of the ones she keeps her face paints in. She opens it, and gently dips her little finger in, before tipping her chin up. He copies her and closes his eyes when she dabs at the corners of his mouth and other tears in his lips. If he hadn’t shut his eyes, he’s fairly sure he’d cry. All this fuss over something that would have healed fine on its own and had many a time.

He tugs on pants while he tries to master himself. Yennefer deftly cuts the soft loaf of fresh bread into slices, buttering several. It’s easier to be distracted with a mug of hot broth, and some slices of soft bread.

Dandelion watches surprised as Geralt drains the mug and sets into the bread. He’d expected the witcher to be more contrary and go after the meat or cheese. Somehow, the witch had known just how much to butter because Geralt slows down considerably when he reaches the last slice and seems to struggle to finish it.

“The meat and cheese are for you,” she informs the bard.

He tries not to look a gift horse in the mouth, he really does, but this seems strange. He is starving, he had missed his dinner helping Geralt. Mouth watering, he digs into the food. He leaves the bread, since she had not mentioned it. He has a feeling the remains are intended for Geralt in the morning if his stomach is still off.

“Go to bed, darling,” Yennefer strokes Geralt’s cheek gently. “We won’t hurt you while you sleep.”

“I know.”

“Then get some rest. Let your body work the rest of that poison out, you’ll feel better in the morning.”

She catches his bitter thought about how he couldn’t feel much worse, and she leans over him after he lies down to kiss his temple. He’s afraid of things being different, now, he’s afraid that she knows what he’s done. The bard does, too.

“Help me clear the table,” she orders the bard. He huffs but gets up and helps her. “When you both wake up, I might be gone. I will be back. Keep him in the room and inform him we’ll all go to the festival together. That’s why we’re here, correct? To enjoy the harvest? I have some wares to sell, you have your infernal lute to play, and I’m sure there’s ales sample and wines to enjoy. I will be back in time for breakfast, and I have not abandoned him. You tell him I will be back, if you lie, I will know.”

The bard eyes her hands, seeing the crackle of magic around them, and meets her eyes. “I won’t lie. I’ll pass on the message.”

“Good.”

“There’s no more rooms, he and I had planned to share until you found a room he could move to,” Dandelion says hesitantly.

“That bed is large enough for three. Don’t touch me and you won’t wind up on the floor,” she smiles. It isn’t a kind smile.

“Alright then,” he rubs his hands together briskly. “I will see you in the morning.”

“Try and discourage him from playing with his cock for a bit,” she tells him snidely. “And don’t play with yours while he’s asleep. He might not know why he’ll wake up feeling agitated, but he’ll wake up agitated all the same. Leave him alone.”

“How… why?” he splutters.

“You want him, you care for him. It’s hard to sleep pressed against him and not do anything, isn’t it? Even worse knowing I’ll keep him riled up and satisfy him, all without having to touch him,” she says spitefully. “You’re too cowardly to tell him. Of course, now you well know he might respond in kind just to keep his friend,” she has no idea why she wants to hurt the bard, other than she wants to hurt someone.

Dandelion looks at her, helpless in his anger. “I don’t know what he sees in you. Every time I think I might have a glimmer of understanding you remind me what a horrible bitch you are. You don’t deserve him. He’s too kind for you, too loving.”

“And yet it’s me he wants,” she inspects her nails. She stands up and brushes past him to go slip into bed against Geralt’s chest. She’ll stay for a while, make sure he’s truly well, and then leave. Dandelion shudders when she passes him, half expecting her to do something to hurt him. She doesn’t, and he breathes a sigh of relief. He slips out of his doublet and makes his way into the bed, pressing his back to Geralt’s. A second later the candles in the room go out.

She could have done that at any time, he thinks, leaving him to trip and stumble around. Confused, he does his best to settle into sleep. She’ll be gone for a bit in the morning, at least.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here comes some fluff.  
> If you've read the books, you might remember 2 sorceresses debating how to get Geralt into their bed, or where they would use him whether they had a bed or not. While that takes place canonically way later, I moved it here for convenience. And I was less detailed about their plans. You're welcome. 
> 
> Unbeta'd.

When Geralt wakes up, he feels stiff and sore all over. Some of his memories trickle back in, and from what he can recall he’s glad he doesn’t remember all of it. The bard is warm at his back, and the bed where Yennefer was is cool. She’s been gone for a bit. Upset, he sits up and then sees her things are still there. The nightgown is draped carefully over the chair, and he’s surprised. Usually she’s not careful with her things, and he recalls having to help her look for some of her clothes.

He’d gotten lucky, facing what he’d expected to be a monster, and it hadn’t been. Well, in terms of what humans considered a monster it was most definitely a monster. A giant mythical creature he’d thought was well, mythical. As a gift for helping it relocate somewhere peaceable and free of humans it had woven him that gown for Yennefer. They’d talked quite a bit, as they’d hiked about, and the creature had been rather garrulous. Terrifying by rights, seeing as how it was easily fifteen feet tall and possessing eight legs and eight eyes, and horribly sharp pincers for a mouth. The thing brought down elk with no problem and ate it all, not leaving so much as a tuft of fur to share. But the silk it wove from…he’d hate for anyone to find out where he’d directed it to, in case it was hunted down and forced to make textiles till it died. Or simply just murdered for whatever silk had already been made.

He staggers over to the table and picks up a slice of bread, mindful to eat over the tray rather than get crumbs all around. Yennefer would not appreciate it if he’d gotten bread into any of her jars or mixtures.

Dandelion rolls over, and sits up, rubbing at his eyes and yawning loudly. “She says she’ll be back in time for breakfast. Did you want me to see if I had enough of that bruise balm to help you?” he asks between yawns.

“I’m alright,” Geralt responds with a typical non-answer.

“I know you heal quicker than a normal man, but by my guess your arse and back are turning purple today, and while they might be green tomorrow, there’s no harm in speeding it along.”

“I won’t need to sit much today,” Geralt shrugs, then winces.

Dandelion gets up, bites into an apple and watches Geralt finish off the bread. She’d known he’d eat it known he’d want it. There’s a skin of what turns out to be juice, something that makes the witcher smile just a little. Just a hint of one, and it’s almost entirely in his eyes. It confuses him, how she can run so hot and cold. Recognize all those little details, memorize so much about him, and then be so callous in the next turn.

“How about this? I’ve rubbed chamomile over your bottom before, I don’t see why you won’t let me use the bruise balm. I’ve also seen, whether you liked it or not, you deal with saddle sores and bed sores, so if you think this is somehow worse, you’re mistaken.”

Geralt considers this, sighs, and when Dandelion finishes his apple, Geralt pulls up his shirt enough to expose his back. The bard pulls the jar out of his bags and spreads some balm between his hands to warm it before starting at Geralt’s hips and sliding his hands up and over his shoulders. The angry color of the skin fades, and the bruises seem to shrink a bit, too. It takes a bit to work properly, and it’s not strong enough to heal all within the day, but it’ll speed the healing by a wide margin. When Geralt can tell the bard is done, he drops his shirt.

“Thank you,” he says and makes as if to move. The bard lightly pats his bottom and he winces, sighs, and unfastens his pants. Half expecting jokes, or something else horrible, he’s surprised when the bard silently and quickly works the balm over his skin and then secures the lid on the jar.

“Well don’t stand there with your cock out,” Dandelion flaps a hand at him and Geralt drags his clothes back into place, tucking his shirt in carefully.

They share the skin of fruit juice, waiting for Yennefer. About the time it’s finished, she comes in, striding briskly. She pauses to look Geralt in the eyes for a moment or two and smiles at him. The bard half wonders how early she woke up to do her make up. Her eyes are lined with kohl and her lashes already darkened. She leans over the table, picks up a small pot and brush and without a mirror expertly touches up her lipstick.

“Right, shall we be off then?” she asks, holding out her arm. Her dress, as always, is spectacular. This one is more understated than usual, and then she pauses again. “Oh, that won’t do,” she notices the bard isn’t dressed and Geralt doesn’t seem to be fully ready either. She digs around in her bags and passes over a doublet to the witcher who sighs a bit. He strips out of the shirt he’d planned to wear, pulls a different one from his bags and then pulls the doublet on. It’s black, at least, with… yes, with violet threading. No embroidery thankfully.

Another knock at the door and it’s the maid with his clothes and boots, neatly cleaned and the clothing pressed. She asks if anything else is needed and is politely told no, not now.

He sits down to tug on his boots, grateful when it hurts far less than it could have. Dressed, or at least as dressed as he thinks he needs to be, he stands up and offers Yennefer his arm again, glancing to see if Dandelion is ready to go, too.

“They’ve started out with bakers and all sorts of food, I expect we’ll be able to walk and eat the whole day if we want,” Yennefer tells Geralt, slipping her arm into his. He nods a bit glad she’s going to put all this behind them.

“Aren’t you going to ask what she was doing?” Dandelion asks, deeply annoyed.

Geralt, after decades of learning the hard way not to ask, shakes his head. No, he’s not going to do that. He’d rather not find out, honestly. If he’s meant to know he’ll find out soon enough. “I’d rather just walk with Yennefer to the fair,” he says.

“You’ll find out what I was doing soon enough,” Yennefer smiles in a way, that even on the best of days, could not be described as kind, or sweet. Geralt has seen that smile and learned to put his hackles up when he sees it. The hair on the back of his neck rises and a shiver runs up his back. He’s seen striga with friendlier smiles than that specific smile Yen uses. She kisses his cheek and pats his hand placidly and he walks with her.

The bard is the first to notice there’s a few more people than normal tied to the whipping posts. Four, in fact. They’re mostly naked, at this point, their clothes shredded. He winces, half wishing that they had passed around this and he didn’t have to see it. Barbaric justice customs all over, bastard kings and mayors hungry for power, fucking over commoners – then he notices some of them are in brocade. Or remains of it. Each person’s back has been caned, and he suspects it’s shoulders to knees just like Geralt.

“Yen,” Geralt breathes in a mix of admiration and horror. “What did you do?”

“Oh gods, it won’t wear off, it won’t stop,” one of them mumbles, mouth bloodied as they press themselves against the post, rutting helplessly in an attempt to break the curse. There’s blood on all of them, and it’s obvious they will never have any kind of natural sex with anyone ever again.

“Gave them the poison they gave you,” she shrugs simply. “A lighter dose, I’m not a murderer.”

Dandelion stares at her and realizes that the witch cares very much. This is quite telling. A few people have gathered to laugh and mock, as they do. The way the barkeep had spoken Geralt wasn’t their first victim and he hadn’t been destined to be the last. But, now at least, he was. They weren’t liable to hurt anyone in that way ever again. In fact, the way some of the men and women were watching their suffering, they weren’t liable to survive to nightfall. When he realizes she can see him staring, he closes his mouth. She smiles at him and lifts a brow.

“Satisfied?”

“Yes,” he says, mouth suddenly dry.

“You didn’t- “

“Indeed. But I did. Does it upset you?”

“No,” Geralt tells her, feeling odd. It probably should. In fact, he feels nothing. Perhaps the satisfaction will come later. He’s not so sure she did it for him. There’d been plenty of mages curious as to why Yennefer had chosen him for bedding. For years, scorning them, or scorning their own chosen partners. She’d picked a witcher, one of the most mutated, at that. He recalls that party they’d been at, where two others had discussed drugging him and taking him to bed against his will just to see if his cock was all it had to be, if Yennefer was so eager to ride it all the time. He had been unsettled, but he’d gone through worse for less, and had hoped that it wouldn’t come to pass. It hadn’t. Yennefer had seen them watching him and come to collect him. Initially she’d been almost jealous, but then had realized he had not wanted the attention in any way.

She’d kept him close the rest of the evening, knowing he was uninterested in her business conversations or the political machinations of the Brotherhood. He would have rather wandered about the room on his own, but they’d both known he was safer near her. Not that anyone would try to take him from her while she was there. Or really force him. At least, again, not during the meetings. As impolite as it was, she’d made sure he was able to keep his plate full, passing by the table of hors d’oeuvres every so often so he could eat. Perhaps these mages had wondered, too, why the sorceress kept the witcher for a lover and had decided to sample him. They’d found him wanting, he knows.

“I didn’t do it for myself,” she tells him quietly, looking at him. “I know you don’t stop humans from doing terrible things. I found them in breach of contract and plenty of other reasons to punish them. I even spoke with some of the council before I did. They agreed I could submit their own crimes upon them as punishment. If it hadn’t been for you, I suspect they wouldn’t have been found out. But I didn’t do this for me, although I do take great satisfaction in it.”

He looks at her, trying to decide if he believes it’s the truth or not. When she stops them in the middle of the busy walkway, holding his gaze, he decides if she’s lying, he’d rather pretend she wasn’t. But her pulse was even, she smelled normal and he couldn’t think of a reason she’d lie. “I don’t need saving, or coddling,” he tells her.

“You need a great deal of coddling,” she pats his hand again. “But not because of that.” She leans into him as they walk, and then smiles. “I’m in the mood for breakfast, are you hungry?”

“I could eat,” he comments neutrally. He’d eaten some but was starving again already. He glances around, Dandelion isn’t far behind them, he’s occasionally stopped to chat with people, telling them where he’ll be playing that evening.

“Look! Fresh peaches, oh, do come over here,” she drags Geralt to a farmer’s small cart, and buys a few different fruits to sample. She’s not buying large quantities, but she doesn’t haggle much, either, so the farmer doesn’t mind her. Using her belt knife, she cuts the first fruit in half neatly, flipping the pit to the side of the walkway. Handing him half, she bites into her half and smiles in pleasure. The fruit is sweet and just the right amount of ripe. He samples his, watching in surprise when she hands off a peach to the bard. After having wiped fruit juice from his chin, he’s surprised when Yennefer pulls him down to kiss him. It’s wonderful in itself, she tastes of the fruit she’d just eaten, and she giggles a bit when they break apart.

“Strawberries!” she points out, tugging him to another cart. Some people have stalls or even what look like more permanent little shop stands, but she keeps choosing the smaller carts. Poorer farms, probably. The produce is no better or worse. She laughs as she feeds him one of the strawberries, and he kisses her in delight, to share the sweet flavor.

Dandelion watches, always surprised to find that the witch shares the food with him. She doesn’t speak to him, doesn’t include him in her laughter, or allow Geralt to be distracted from her. He comes to realize it isn’t meant to be cruel. He’s along because he follows Geralt. She’s doing all of this to distract him and put him at ease. Teasing the witcher with a piece of fruit, a half of a pastry, a slice of roast lamb, and they walk and eat their way down the paths set up for the fair. He’s never really seen the witcher in this kind of mood, where he smiles a bit, and laughs some when Yennefer does. He bends his ear to her and seems lighter.

She’s undoing it, he realizes. Without any magic at all, she’s undoing the harm they did, not all of it, but some of it. She makes him feel less other. Less inhuman. People are more willing to approach and laugh with a man attached to a pretty laughing woman than a glowering man alone, witcher or not. He suffers alongside Geralt when they try some kind of smoked meat made with strong spices. Yennefer laughs again, unbothered, but finds them some soft, bland cheese and rolls to help take away the pain.

“What the fuck was that,” he complains, having thought he had a strong well-cultured palette.

Geralt resists rubbing his nose on his sleeve, and blinks away tears from his watering eyes. The cheese had helped, as had the bread. When he finds someone with cups and skins of juice for sale, he purchases some, sharing with both the bard and Yennefer.

“Chiles, and peppers, they shred the meat and mix it together, then smoke it.”

“I shouldn’t want to eat that ever again. Oh, that was too much,” the bard wheezes. Geralt laughs, and Dandelion stares at him. He hasn’t seen him really laugh. He chuckles sometimes, but this is something new. It hurts a bit; he’s never managed to bring this side of the witcher out. He hadn’t realized how much Yennefer knew about Geralt, either. His favorite fruits, drinks, what types of meat he hadn’t tried but might like, what he might not like. She knew him, cared enough to remember his preferences. As far as Dandelion knew, Geralt would eat anything at least once, and didn’t much care what it was so long as it was filling. He hadn’t realized how badly the witcher just wanted to be a man with a woman and no burdens to carry.

His hatred for the sorceress eases a little. He doesn’t think he’ll ever like her. Especially since he knows all this frivolity and fun will just end in heartbreak again for Geralt, and he’ll be morose until they start again. Every time this happens, it makes him angry all over again. Why keep going back? He’d wanted to ask, but now he understands. At least some of it, it’s not as if he didn’t go back to the countess a few times. Or his duchess.

“Oh, Geralt, your favorite, come over here, I didn’t even know you could find it this far inland, come on,” she tugs him over, and he follows her. The sun is warm on his face, he’s clean, and while the doublet is obnoxious, it’s not as horrible as it had felt when he first put it on. She buys two of an oddly shaped fruit Dandelion hasn’t seen before, and deftly slices it against her palm without so much as nicking her skin. She holds half out to Geralt who takes it, and then offers Dandelion a few slices. He tries it cautiously, wondering what kind of fruit might be Geralt’s favorite. It’s sweet, a little tart, and has a very light flavor. Then he notices the little slices in his hand are shaped like stars.

Geralt savors the sweet flavor, eyes closed as they stand to the side of the crowds, out of the way. He’s mindful of the little seeds and knocks them free of the fruit before eating the rest of it. When Yennefer’s finished her pieces, he leans in to kiss her, heedless of how improper it might be. She keeps her hands away from him, to keep his doublet clean, but kisses him willingly.

They’re making their way past all the food and trinkets to the proper vendors, and when they’ve rinsed sticky fingers and faces in the fountain, their exploration of the harvest market begins in earnest. Yennefer does quite a bit more shopping than Geralt had expected and finds he doesn’t mind carrying some of it with him. Dandelion has his own things to buy, and for a bit the witcher finds himself trailing the bard as Yennefer haggles with a hedge witch over some charms.

He lightly touches the back of the bard’s hand with his fingertips and Dandelion turns to him. “I’m not mad at you,” he says, unsure what the look on Geralt’s face is about. “You were enjoying your time with her, and I didn’t want to get in the way of that. Soon enough you’ll both burn it down.” Then he hates himself. “I’m sorry. Maybe this time you won’t,” he says, gently squeezing Geralt’s shoulder. “Fuck, I don’t, she brings out the worst in me, I say horrible things and I don’t mean to. Or I do, but not to you, not…Let’s try that again. I’m doing wonderfully, this place is less of a backwater than I thought, and our horses will have more to carry as we travel.”

Geralt simply frowns at him a little, realizing he has been missing something about the bard. “I’m sorry, last night, that I asked you to…” he clears his throat and looks around rather than finish his sentence. “It wasn’t right. If that’s… if that’s why you’re uncomfortable with me, I wouldn’t… I was just desperate, and I would have asked anyone, it was…I was…I didn’t mean to upset…I don’t know what I’m trying to tell you, I’m just sorry I put you in that position.”

Dandelion hisses in his breath, stung by some of the apology. He glances over at Yennefer, still haggling and takes a deep breath. “If you had been fully in control of yourself and had asked me in earnest, rather than desperation I would have gladly done it,” his voice is a little clipped, but he can’t make himself confess anything.

Rather than feeling like his apology was accepted, he feels like he made the situation worse, he simply frowns. The words make sense individually but strung together they make him feel stupid. “You…you want…?”

“Not here, not now. It’s lovely out, there’s people to talk to, purchases to be made, food to sample, wines to try...apology accepted. You were suffering and now that it’s over, here we are. Looks like she got what she wanted,” he looks over as Yennefer comes to join them.

Bewildered, Geralt doesn’t try to press the conversation. Not that he ever usually does, in fact, quite often, he is trying to stop the conversation from happening at all. He links his arm with Yennefer’s and lets her lead them about a bit. He has no interest in most goods, he has two shirts, an extra pair of pants, and he’s wearing his boots. He doesn’t need much more, and he has nowhere to store any of it, anyway. Although, perhaps he could use some extra socks, and Roach might be able to use a newer saddle blanket…when they make their way to the livestock areas, he finds a woman who makes truly beautiful saddle blankets. He’s not interested in looks and selects a simple grey one. It seems well made and sturdy and the horse won’t care what it looks like any more than he does.

He also remembers to buy some small bags of grains and feed, along with a few wizened carrots. No need for fresh or fancy, the horse is just going to eat them and shit them out without caring.

Yennefer drops back to let him shop on his own, linking her arm through the bard’s. “I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer not to walk through pig shit. He’ll come back when he’s done.”

“Ah.”

“It’s sweet, how he says he couldn’t care less about the horse, and here he is buying her things.”

“It’s not as if he’s buying saddle charms or trinkets for her mane or special soaps for her tail,” the bard protests, then wonders why he’s doing it.

“No, but he is finding care for her hooves, and something to make sure she doesn’t get mites in her ears, and a whole host of other things for her that aren’t strictly necessary. He just likes to have it all on hand. He has a great capacity for love,” she glances at the bard from the side of her eye. “He’d purchase something for you, but he has no idea what to give you. He knows he has no eye for fashion, you don’t bedeck yourself with much jewelry and he wouldn’t know what to pick, he can’t buy anything for your instrument -the lute or otherwise,” she smirks. “He has no idea what’s required.” She doesn’t let him shop for her, either. “He does look around for you. He does make sure he can see you, and that you’re safe. He won’t say it with words, but he cares about you as much as he does the horse, at the very least. Try to notice.”

When Geralt gets back to them, he smells a bit like livestock but in the open air it will fade quickly. Yennefer wrinkles her nose. “We should find a runner, so we aren’t having to carry things.”

“We could have asked some of this be delivered at the end,” Dandelion points out, for all he hadn’t purchased much.

“And hoped no one resold it to double their profit and then gave it to whoever purchased it last,” Geralt points out.

“Well then.”

“Let’s just take it back ourselves, and come back to enjoy the rest?” Dandelion suggests. The urchins hovering about seem more likely to steal than deliver their things.

They make it to the inn and back, going a different path to avoid the town square both times. Dandelion stays closer this time, snidely discussing the various other musicians who are busking around the festival. Geralt grins a few times, shaking his head ruefully at the description of one man’s voice the bard comes up with on the spot.

There are different things to see, and Yennefer and Dandelion together manage to press Geralt into joining a line dance with them. He has no idea what the steps are and cursing softly manages not to step on anyone while sort of keeping up. Geralt manages to learn the steps thanks to the people on either side of him who laughingly tell him things like ‘turn now, then left, step right, step right I said, now left again.’ Surprised to be taken in, no one calls him names, or threatens him. No one makes fun of his appearance, or much of anything else at all. It’s so strange he doesn’t know what to do about it.

Dandelion laughs at the witcher’s intense concentration the whole way through the simple steps and can see his lips repeatedly form the word ‘fuck.’ Yennefer is laughing, too, for she can tell he’s marveling at just being accepted, even if he’s not pleased he has to dance for it. When the music ends and they bow out, the women give Yennefer a sort of knowing look. She tosses her hair and claims him with a gentle kiss.

“That was lovely,” she tells him. “Oh, a slow song! Come on, one more,” she tugs him back and Geralt heaves a distraught sigh.

Dandelion has no problem finding a partner to dance nearby with, knowing Geralt would be even less pleased to see the bard by himself.

When it’s over, Geralt tugs Yennefer well away from the area for the dancers, coming back momentarily to seize Dandelion by the belt and drag him away. The bard protests slightly but manages to a bow to his partner while being walked backwards.

“Geralt, let go so I can turn around and walk with you,” he complains. The witcher releases him and he spins lightly on his feet, surprised to see Geralt watching him.

“You can go back to her, if you want,” he offers, suddenly looking uncomfortable.

“Oh, no, I feel since we’ve started this together, we’ll end it together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Geralt's favorite fruit is something real you can find, I don't know what it's real name is, but we grew up calling it starfruit. It doesn't have a strong flavor but I figured since it's rare he probably has fond memories of it, rather than being concerned with the flavor. 
> 
> If you'd like to see the rest let me know. I respond well to comments and encouragement. I've got 30 pages written and am wrapping up the fic. Geralt still has to hunt his monster, and bed his bard. 
> 
> Feel free to ask for prompts, too, here or on tumblr, I've never gotten a writing prompt but I'd like to do one. :}


	3. Part 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there's 1 more part, I guess. 4 Chapters total. I lied. I guess I'm incapable of writing less than 50 pages for a story.

Yennefer is waiting for them by a tree, and the bard can see she’s managed to secure them dinner of some sort and she’s holding some plump wineskins. At least he hopes it’s wine. Or beer, or ale, something that isn’t just water.

“Just behind the trees, if we walk a minute or so, there’s a nice grassy area no one seems to have found yet. We can eat there, and take a break,” she offers.

Geralt nods gratefully, realizing he’s a bit tired. Dandelion nods, too, surprised she’s including him. He’d half expected this to become a tryst. It still might, if she’s found herself a secluded spot. He just has a feeling he’ll need to find an elsewhere to be.

The bard realizes Yennefer had figured out some his preferences. When he stares at her, she smiles. “I asked Geralt,” she tells him, and the witcher looks between them both in confusion.

She gives him a look, like the cat who has the cream. If she’s been playing nice all day, when she does something vicious the witcher won’t believe him. At least, that’s what the bard believes. Hopefully he’s wrong, but he doesn’t trust her, or like her. At least she’s making Geralt extremely happy.

“How’re you feeling?” she asks Geralt quietly as they spread out the food on a cloth she’d purchased. She’ll set up her booth the next morning, and sell everything that she brought, she’s sure. Let more people come in for the festival before she bothers selling her wares.

“Better than I expected,” he admits quietly, looking around the clearing and desperately not wanting to have this conversation.

“Did the oil work?” she asks him, her voice empty of any emotion.

“I haven’t looked.”

“Does it still hurt?”

“I- no.”

“Don’t be afraid I’m going to try and touch you today,” she tells him dryly.

“I wasn’t,” he replies, slightly stung. As if she’d want to, now that she knows all she does.

“Stop it,” she tells him suddenly. Dandelion’s head snaps up, he hadn’t quite come in yet, seeing as how they weren’t done and it had looked more flirtatious than it was, clearly. He edges in nearer, wringing his hands a bit. “Nothing they’ve done to you, nothing anyone’s done _to_ you has anything to do with how I feel about you!” She looks over at Dandelion and his mouth goes dry. “Do you think he loves you less because of what he knows now?”

Geralt opens his mouth, unsure of how to answer. They’re friends, Dandelion doesn’t love him much one way or the other, beyond as a friend. That odd comment earlier, he had to have misheard or just not understood. Or perhaps it was a thing friends did when the other was desperate of companionship, he isn’t sure. Not to mention the bard has been odd with him, and perhaps the pity is just too much.

“Pity?” her voice rises a little and her hands shake. “Do you pity him? Think him pathetic?”

“What?” Dandelion asks, looking between them in horror. “Is that what he’s thinking? I know you read thoughts, is that what you think Geralt?” he asks, heart aching. “You think that changed how I saw you? How I feel about you? I knew you could be stupid as all fuck, Geralt, but that’s… that’s just beyond comprehension even for you! How could you think that? How could you think I’d love you less, or, or want you less just because someone else abused you?!” Then he freezes, eyes rounding in utter horror. Oh no, that wasn’t how he’d want that to go at all.

“Love me?” Geralt asks stupidly.

“You tricked me, you bitch,” Dandelion tells Yennefer savagely.

“So, you don’t love him? And you do pity him?”

“No! Fuck you, don’t twist my meaning!”

She picks up a grape and pops it into her mouth, rolling it over her tongue before breaking the skin with her teeth. “I don’t see how I tricked you into anything, if what you said was true,” she points out.

“Please stop,” Geralt asks them both, lost. “I don’t…I don’t understand,” he says helplessly.

Dandelion takes a few breaths, steeling himself. If this is going to be goodbye, then this is going to be goodbye and he’ll do it right. “I’m in love with you, you oafish … I have been for years. It’s not a passing fancy, and I don’t need anything more from you than what I have already. The only thing that’s changed, as far as I’m concerned, is that I don’t…I don’t want it to be more, because I can’t imagine how we could be together without you being reminded of what’s been done to you,” he says miserably. “Because the only reason you found out how I felt was because of this,” he spreads his hands helplessly. Then runs one through his hair. “If you never want to see me again, I’ll understand. But if you don’t mind it, we can just carry on as we have.”

“We can’t,” Geralt says hoarsely, and then stares at Yennefer. “We can’t just carry on as we have.” He sees the bard’s eyes fill with tears. “I don’t want you to go,” he adds quickly. She’s watching him, he knows, waiting for him to decide for himself. She did this on purpose, Dandelion was right. But he doesn’t understand what she wants. “Yen-”

“Oh, this is between you both, don’t mind me,” she says. “I don’t care about the outcome. So long as there is one.”

“Geralt, I don’t have any need to act on my desires,” he says quietly. “I, how long have we known each other? And I’ve never done a thing that you caught onto, or that would have let you know. I won’t start now. I won’t change anything.”

“What...what if I want you to?” Geralt croaks.

“You don’t, I know you don’t understand this, but I don’t want you to think I have to. I don’t need to…You felt what they did was a transaction.”

“It was,” Geralt tells him stubbornly. It’s the only way he can think of it. “I needed what was in that pouch, I got it.”

“You could have killed them and taken it.”

“And earned a new moniker? Butcher of the Harvest?” he sneers.

“That’s not, I don’t want to talk about that right now, stop. Please. That’s enough. My point is, outside of your affections for Yennefer, I’m not sure you know what all things should be or could be. And I can’t stand the idea you might think the choice is to let me take of you, or that I’ll leave. I know you value our friendship,” he fusses with his sleeves and then his hands nervously. “I know you enjoy my company even when you’re being a right arse about it, I know that. I’m trying to tell you, if that’s all you truly want, if that’s all you have to give, Geralt I’ve never seen you show interest in a man in all our time together. It’s always her.”

“I love her,” he says weakly. It’s true. “But…I think…” he leans in closer to the bard, who doesn’t back away. “I don’t think we are friends,” he says suddenly, and he hates that he says it wrong again, because the tears spill over the bard’s cheeks. “You sleep at my back, you…you took care of me, last night. I was, so many would have left me to my own devices. I didn’t go looking for Yen, I went looking for you,” he says softly. True, Yennefer hadn’t been there, so there’d been no sense in trying to find her. He glances at her again, unsure of what all this means for them.

“Geralt,” she tells him very gently, “Just because I would leave him in a well to die doesn’t mean you would. I love you, and you love me,” she adds. “That doesn’t mean you only have room in your heart for one. I admit, I don’t intend to share you often, and if you’re visiting me, then I expect you’ll be with me. But I have no intention of stopping you from doing what your heart desires while you’re on the road.” He can be so dense. She’s utterly unphased by all of it, if he wants to kiss Dandelion, too, then so be it.

He thinks for a few moments, very hard, about all his time with the bard as his companion. He’d been comfortable doing so many things with Dandelion he never would have done with anyone. He chews his lip for a moment, watching the bard wring his hands before he leans in and presses his lips to Dandelion’s.

Dandelion moans softly, and leans in, bringing both hands up to cradle the witcher’s face. He pulls back slowly, eyebrows creased. “You don’t ever have to do that again,” he reassures Geralt.

Confused, he tries to hide the hurt. “I didn’t…I thought, I wanted…was it that unpleasant?” he leans back, no one’s ever told him he wasn’t good at kissing.

“What?” the bard yelps. “Oh, Melitele’s tits, fuck it all Geralt, I just-Ah, I can’t, even explain, you don’t understand what I’m telling you at all do you? Of course you don’t. You think what happened earlier was a business transaction and not a vio- it doesn’t matter. I want to kiss you all the time, I want to touch you all over, in places I never have before, and if you truly want me to, then later, some time, we will explore that together. But only if you truly want me to.”

“Dandelion?” Yennefer raises an eyebrow. “Stop torturing him with words, and just kiss him back.”

Deciding it’s the only natural course of action, he does. He’s surprised at how tightly the witcher pulls him in, hugging him to his chest and gripping his shirt. They kiss for a few moments, and both pull away at the same time, chests heaving. “Well then,” he says brightly. “Let’s eat dinner, shall we?”

Geralt moves over to Yennefer’s side, almost as if he expects a beating of some kind. Instead, she kisses his cheek. She opens a wineskin and takes a sip, rolling it over her tongue before deciding if she likes the flavor or not. It’s a little sweet but it should pair with their meal fine. Taking a bigger drink, she passes the skin to the bard and kisses Geralt. He kisses her back, just as hungry for her as Dandelion.

“We will not be doing that in this clearing,” she tells him lightly, flicking his arm. “No matter how much you might hope for it.”

“We’ve done things in much worse places.”

“That’s not going to wash away yesterday. And quite frankly I’m not sure you’re as physically up for it as you think.”

“There’s always magic.”

“That is a spell we have used, yes,” she recalls. “But after witcher’s elixirs, Geralt. You were in control of yourself, no one had poisoned you. It’s not quite the same thing. Tomorrow, or perhaps later tonight, but no, not now. You’re just excitable because you’ve discovered another paramour,” she teases. “We’ll both still be here tomorrow.”

He huffs lightly, only slightly put out. He’s mostly relieved, as badly as he’d hurt the day before he wasn’t sure he could manage any interest, much less sustained interaction. Not to mention usually after some of those types of transactions, he didn’t feel much like fucking for days after. They eat quietly, there’s not much to say. The food is good, and there’s small cakes and more fruit to go around. Geralt with his near-unfillable stomach eats to repletion and leans back in the grass.

“I’d swear every part of you was hollow, not just your stomach and skull,” Yennefer teases him. He grunts in response and lets his eyes close.

Dandelion looks at Yennefer hesitantly, then screws up his courage and shifts closer to Geralt, shifting the witcher’s head to his thigh. When nothing happens, he relaxes. Geralt shifts into his lap more, draping himself catlike across the bard’s legs with a pleased chuffing sound. Dandelion smiles broadly at Yennefer as he strokes the witcher’s hair and back, fingertips tracing idly patterns across his doublet. Yennefer gives him a mocking smile and he makes a face back at her, for all his hands keep moving gently over Geralt’s body. When he realizes Geralt’s asleep, he bends as far as he can without dislodging his poor witcher, just for a glimpse of his face. He’s peaceful, no creases to his brow, or frown pulling his lips, he seems softer, somehow. Less careworn.

“How did you know?” he asks Yennefer quietly, idly braiding and unbraiding sections of Geralt’s hair.

“Know what?”

“You know damn well what.”

“That he loves you, too? Returns your feelings? He’s comfortable with you. How many people can say that? There’s a few he calls friends, here and there, but many of them are fair-weather, or owe allegiance to someone else. He looks for you all the time if he can’t see you, he worries about what stupid troubles you’ll get yourself into. He hasn’t broken your lute over your head or kicked you down a ravine. You’ve followed him for years and he hasn’t broken any of your bones, he openly claims to be friends with you. And when we first met, and I looked into his mind, I knew he’d do anything I asked him to do to save you. For however long I wanted. Do you understand? He would have sold himself to me for you, the same way he sold himself for a pouch of herbs and precious metals.”

“How does he not see how horrible that is?” Dandelion asks Yennefer miserably.

“You have to consider what a witcher is, Dandelion. What they’re told to do, and how. He’s told kill the monster for coin. There’s a code, whether he’s made it up or it’s real or not, I don’t truly know. But the fact is, he kills the monster, he gets paid. He pays for other goods, armor, saddles, horses, a farrier, everything in his life is meant to revolve around transactions. Killing is a transaction. The average villager is told he’s a monster, so if he wants sex, he pays. Another transaction. And you’re asking him to see it the way you do. Where there should be limits. Why? Why should there be? What protections should he have? What does he have when he goes to hunt the monster, Dandelion, nothing but his armor and his swords. So when someone tells him your body for my elixir, or my help, or whatever it is, what conditions should he place on that?

“Does he hold back in a fight and say to himself, if I’m hit twice, or thrice, I’ll stop and let the monster continue living? No. He fights until one of them is dead, and the task is done.”

“You almost sound like you agree with him.”

“I don’t. But I’m asking you, since I know you won’t leave it alone, that when you upset him, and push the issue, that you try and understand why he won’t understand you. He won’t be mistaking your meaning. I’ll also ask you to think about this, too, this is not the first time he’s done this. It might not be the last, either. Will you ask him to see it differently, and feel worse than he does? Do you think giving what happens a title, and therefore more shame is going to help him?”

“He might feel better if he spoke about it,” Dandelion tells her resentfully. “He might feel better if he knew why he didn’t take pleasure in what was happening.”

“It’s a transaction,” she sighs, taking another drink or two of wine. “He doesn’t need to take pleasure in a transaction unless that’s what he’s paying for.”

“How can you not care?” Dandelion asks her, voice scathing. “How can you know he lets this happen to him, time and time again, and doesn’t complain or think anything of it?”

“What do you think a whore feels? Is that not a profession? Have you not visited bordellos?”

“There are limits, and rules, and someone who is supposed to protect the girls if things get too rough. There’s supposed to be a bit of choice in the matter, not just bend over until I’ve torn you open on both ends!”

Geralt shifts in his sleep, frowning, and Dandelion realizes he’d almost been shouting. He goes completely silent and waits, gently stroking snow-white hair away from Geralt’s face until he’s calm again. He knows full well the only reason Geralt can sleep through him talking is because some nights he can’t shut up. Regardless of how many times Geralt asks. So now, instead of asking, the witcher just goes to sleep. He’s used to hearing the bard’s voice.

“Then at the very least, he should understand that he’s not getting an even trade from the bargain!”

“Human lives aren’t worth his life? That’s all he’s been told. What’s a few more drops of blood, a little more humiliation and degradation, and just a touch more suffering. Witchers aren’t allowed to just be as they please and do as they please. You’ve heard of other schools from the past, you know they razed the keep at Kaer Morhen. They used to be considered useful, and now they’re disdained much like the women of those bordellos you’ve frequented.”

“I have very rarely if ever had to pay for a warm and willing bedmate,” he says stiffly.

“But it’s never bothered you before, has it? You’ve never once wondered if those women are getting a fair trade. They have a bed, yes, food? And a patron who supposedly cares for them, tends their illnesses or injuries or stops them from being hurt? What if their patron isn’t fair handed? What if he or she pimps them out with no regard to their safety or humanity? Well surely the poor whore can be her own pimp, then? How many dead whores do you think you’ve passed in ditches in the road and never known? What if she’s indentured, have you thought of that? She has to buy her way out, which means not saying no to any ‘extra services’ her client requests. And then you expect, in the face of one of the world’s oldest professions that you can sit Geralt down and say to him: ‘You’ve been raped. Brutally, and repeatedly, and it’s wrong, and you must stop it from happening again.’ and you expect him to thank you? To agreeable to being enlightened? Do you truly think he doesn’t know, deep down that since he hates it so much, it must be something bad?”

The bard just stares at her, jaw slack. It hadn’t occurred to him that anywhere under all her anger and malice and coldness there was a human woman. One who saw the world around her and would burn it down to protect others but knows it would just be rebuilt in the same way. There’s no point. Suddenly, he understands why Geralt lets her throw preserve jars and scream at him, and why they fight and end up ultimately back together some time later. It doesn’t mean there should be any jam jars being thrown, or them having a shouting match. It’s just that Geralt sees this all the time, whether Yennefer likes it or not. He knows it’s there, and it’s what he loves, and he won’t let go of it, even when Yennefer tries -and succeeds for a time at least- to drive him off.

“Well how am I to convince him that being with me will be any different than what he’s done before with other men when none of it was willing? Why would he even love me, if he’s never chosen men before. Or has he?”

“No, he hasn’t,” she says idly, fairly sure that’s no secret. Geralt typically prefers the ‘fairer’ sex. “I don’t think he cares about a person’s body the way you might think he has to. He’s seen so many things that aren’t human, what should he care about your genitals? Or the shape of you?”

“He cares very much about your shape.”

Yennefer laughs, it’s true. “I mean I don’t feel as though he falls in love with a person’s outside.” The first time he’d seen her, he’d seen all her flaws and decided later she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. He’d known she’d been ugly once, seen her uneven shoulders, the sharpness of her jaw and longness of her nose, and hadn’t cared. Although if asked she knows he’d say her hair is his favorite feature of hers. In reality she’s fairly sure her tits are the top of his list, and then her hair, and then perhaps something else. “Your shape isn’t displeasing, provided it came with a different person inside. But he likes you, and so your shape doesn’t bother him,” she tries to explain. “You will have to work hard to teach him two men can be together without hurting each other.” Just as he’d taught her that people could love without conditions. “Although if you want, I’m sure I could find a spell to give you some truly amazing tits.”

Dandelion laughs this time and pauses to wonder at it. He and Yennefer getting along. It seems hardly likely. When Geralt shifts again, trying to get more comfortable in his sleep, the bard sighs. “We’d best get him to a bed so he can get some real rest.”

“He’ll miss more dancing,” she teases.

“I have a tavern to play for, as promised. For room and board, and he’d do better to rest in a real bed. I’m doubtful I got all the bruising and I’m sure he’s just ignoring the fact he’s still not the most comfortable.”

“I have something, I think,” she chews her lip a moment. She starts gathering up the remains of their dinner, and Dandelion slowly starts the work of waking their witcher as kindly as possible. It mostly involves very gentle kisses and quite a bit of hair stroking, but it seems to be working.

Geralt shifts around more, eyelids twitching until they finally open and focus on the bard bent over him. He gives him a soft barely-there smile and rolls to try and get back to sleep when he sees Yennefer packing up. The sun’s dropping in the sky and they should get back. He pulls himself up stiffly and Dandelion watches critically. If dealing with Yennefer less spitefully means Geralt gets better care, he supposes he can manage.

They make their way back to the inn peaceably, Geralt’s arm linked with Yennefer’s. Whenever the bard strays to speak with acquaintances or fellow musicians, Geralt always keeps an eye on him, trusting Yennefer to lead him so he doesn’t walk into something.

The tavern owner welcomes them easily enough, handing Dandelion his lute from behind the bar. “I’ll get right to playing them,” he nods, and goes to settle himself and check the tune of his lute. Yennefer rolls her eyes a bit.

“Sir,” he says, looking at Geralt. “I saw you had left with some things, to the castle, and then you came back without it. I sent my stable boys before, well…Madam Sorceress, we owe you a great deal of thanks. Those bastards were a plague and a blight on our…the fact is, I sent some boys looking, before people realized to go loot the place, or believed it was haunted or what have you. They found this for you,” he pulls out Geralt’s armor from under the bar. “I felt, since you were going for the monster later, you’d need this. Seeing as how you and the Madam here, together, dealt with those fuckers for us.”

Geralt stares, oddly touched anyone noticed or cared. He hadn’t been sure how he was going to get it back, or what he’d have to do. Not to mention he hadn’t even been sure where any of it was, he couldn’t remember much of that night. Which was, as far as he can tell, a blessing.

“Will you be going after it tonight sir?”

“I was hoping one more day to …” He doesn’t want to say recover. He doesn’t want to admit he’s still healing a little. “Plan out the attack better.”

“That’s good, that’s good. Tomorrow’s fine. It’s not like the damn thing hasn’t been here so long it’s killed plenty. It should be quiet tonight as is. It doesn’t hunt nightly and it killed a few travelers before you ever got here. Shouldn’t be hungry again for a bit. We sent people to kill it, you know, our alderman even got the local government to send a few soldiers. They never came back, so I’m glad you’re here, Master Witcher.” He holds out a hand, and Geralt grips it, still shocked any of this is happening.

“Tomorrow, I will need an assistant, if possible, I was wondering if you could spare the maid,” she gestures to the girl who’d washed and repaired Geralt’s clothes. “I would pay you for her services, of course. And then, also, if you’d send a stable boy, one you trust, to run errands. Three times, on the morrow, I’d need him a bit before the lunch hour, mid-afternoon, and then again at evening time.”

“I can do that. Sylvia won’t mind I’m sure.” When he sees one of the patrons get a bit too frisky with his barmaid, he picks up a cudgel and steps around his bar to go see what the matter is. The lout doesn’t put up any fuss and it seems the matter is settled. No heads are knocked in and the evening continues on as the bard plays and sings.

Yennefer slips him a few silver pieces for the borrowing of his servants. “Try not to let too many people buy the bard ale,” she asks him. “Or water it down after he’s had a cup or two.”

“He already told me yesterday, water down the wine, or put juice in the cups or some water. He says whatever they paid for his drinks; we’d split half that way since I wouldn’t be out much coin at all not giving him much.”

Surprised Dandelion had the forethought or interest in doing that, she raises her eyebrows. “Well that’s well enough then. Thank you.” She turns to see Geralt, watching the bard but oddly tense. She can tell he isn’t worried about Dandelion, but then she notices how heavily he’s breathing. It’s the smell of the tavern that’s upsetting him. “Let’s get to bed, I didn’t sleep much last night, and using so much magic wore me out.”

He nods, attention broken away. They’d mixed it in his ale, and the smell is making him stick to his stomach. It’ll pass, and he’s sure he’ll go back to drinking as much as he ever did. He’s had plenty of unpleasant experiences with alcohol, this won’t stop him any more than the others. He follows her up the stairs, and watches as she changes into the violet nightgown again. He strips out of the doublet happily and sets it neatly across the back of the chair, so Yennefer won’t scold him.

“I have a better salve for bruises, if I recall you had several. Before you go decide to chase monsters in the woods, we should heal up what we can.”

He sighs and strips out of his clothes. She starts at his neck; the higher collar of his doublet had hidden the bruising there. His breathing gets a little heavier while she works, and she knows he’s trying not to remember anything more than he already does. “Stay with me,” she tells him, as she moves her palm in a straight line across his hips. Must have been a high table, or the bruising would be lower. She erases the handprints from his thighs with her touch, and then steps around behind him to work her way from the top of his spine down to the backs of his knees. “Geralt, stay with me, I’m the one touching you,” she reminds him. When she’s done, she puts the jar away, and pulls out a shirt from her bags.

It’s black and incredibly soft. It’s not the same material as her nightgown, not even close. She’s never found anything else like it. However, what she’s found for him is soft, and warm and it’s meant to be slept in. She hands it to him and watches him run his hands over it, gripping the fabric. There’s nothing like this he would have had in his hands when they were taking their payment out of his hide. It should be enough to keep him grounded. He tugs it on over his head, and she smiles and strokes the vee of skin that the collar doesn’t cover.

“I can’t,” he tells her.

“I wasn’t trying,” she informs him. “Let’s go to sleep,” she offers. They leave a candle burning to guide the bard, so he won’t bark his shins or break something, and curl in the middle of the bed together.

Geralt’s bad dreams wake them twice and Yennefer mostly pretends to ignore it. When Dandelion shuffles in quietly, he strips out of most of his clothing, blows out the candle, and eases himself into the bed on Geralt’s other side, away from the sorceress. Geralt groans in his sleep and rolls over, pressing his back into Yennefer. Unsurprised, she wraps an arm around his middle, holding him close.

Dandelion finds himself awake later, some noise disturbing him. Surprised it’s Geralt’s breathing, he reaches out carefully in the dark and puts a hand on the witcher’s chest. Geralt grasps it, still asleep, and settles back down. The bard lays awake for a while, wondering if Yennefer was right and that forcing Geralt to confront all this would be a cruelty.

The witcher wakes with the sun, to the deep disgust of his bedmates. He has a full bladder to deal with, and he needs to do at least a little more investigating before confronting the monster dogging the town. His feet lead him back to the castle, and he stares from the edge of the of the property. This wouldn’t be the first time he’d run afoul of mages creating monsters. He’d killed that one, with no remorse. The bastard had pretended to be possessed by a demon and had brutally murdered random villagers with no remorse. He had gone back and killed that man, despite being told by the Brotherhood he couldn’t. Hands shaking, he clenches them several times and then leaves. There’s no answers to be found there, or if there are, he can’t make himself go in and search.

A bit of wandering, a bit of questioning people, and he feels confident enough about what he’s facing. He should be able to make short shrift of it. Still low on funds, he has no coin to buy his companions breakfast, and sighs deeply. At least Roach is cared for. He visits the stables first, surprised to see both the mare and her tack gleaming. A boy with gap toothed grin and several missing baby teeth swings by.

“Are you needing her saddled up, sir?”

“No,” he says. “I was just coming to brush her, but I see I don’t need to.”

“We already gave her the carrots, but I have some more, fresher ones, if’n y’want to give ‘em to her yesself, sir,” he proffers the vegetables in question.

“Perhaps just one, don’t want her to get too spoiled,” he says agreeably. “Before I leave, make sure you’re here, and you’ll find a few coins for yourself. Provided she still looks like this.”

“They ain’t paid you yet, have they?” the impudent wretch asks shrewdly.

“No, they have not,” Geralt says heavily. “But I keep my word. Always.” Roach headbutts him, and he passes her the carrot, stroking her neck while she eats. He slips into her stall, watching as the boy gives him a nod and disappears. Alone with his horse, he leans into her, wrapping an arm around her neck. “I came here to find something to do with my hands, and find there’s nothing,” he tells her quietly. “I suppose I’ll have to find some other task to busy myself with until later.” She ignores him until her carrot is finished, and then sniffs him over, looking for another. He doesn’t bother to push her away, it won’t matter, he hasn’t got anything she wants. Her tack is clean, too, spotless, oiled and all the dust is brushed away. When he lifts up one of her hooves, he finds that her frogs are clean, her shoes are still in good condition, and there’s nothing for him to do.

When he makes his way back up to the room to find Yennefer gone, along with several of her bags. Dandelion is still asleep in the bed, at least. When he sets his witcher’s chest on the table with a soft thump, Dandelion sits up.

“You’re back. Are you alright?” he asks muzzily, stretching as he yawns. “Yennefer left; she says they’ll bring breakfast up when they see you come back. There’s some fruit still, if you want it. Oh, what else was I supposed to tell you? If you choose to visit her at market, she has clothes laid out for you. If you plan to stay here all day, she won’t be well pleased but she’d understand. I think that’s it. I don’t have to go out until after high noon, they don’t expect troubadours to keep early hours.”

His chatter doesn’t surprise Geralt in the least, and he mostly ignores it. He can see there’s a second doublet, this time with silver stitching. He’s seen a dress of hers, mostly black with silver, perhaps they’re meant to match. New pants, too, he notices, good quality and sturdy. Then he pauses and bends down to lift up new boots. She’d noticed his were a bit worn through. He’d planned to get new ones after collecting his fee. When he pulls off the old boot and tugs on the new, he’s surprised to find it feels almost already broken in. The leather is soft and supple, but the sole is sturdy. The toe is stiff as is the heel, probably to protect him from losing any of his digits should something land on his foot.

“Ah, yes, she does have a good eye for quality. Hard to believe how well she knows your measurements, too. Not that I haven’t guessed fairly well, myself, from time to time when it’s been necessary. I wish you’d wear something other than black, just once or twice without being forced.”

“Witchers wear black,” Geralt says simply. Tugging the new boot off, he leaves it on the floor next to its fellow. He won’t wear them to go hunting. At least not this time. He’ll keep them nice while he’s with Yennefer, and once they’ve parted ways, he’ll wear them the same way he wore the old ones. All the time and until they fall apart.

When a knock at the door comes, it’s a different maid than usual, and Geralt remembers Yennefer had requested help with her wares at the festival. Thanking the maid, she doesn’t stay long, doesn’t even hold out a hand, and he has a feeling she’s already been well tipped.

“Oh, I knew I forgot something, Yennefer said to tell you she’d left you a small purse. Just to grease palms, so to speak, if you were having trouble. She says if you’re concerned about being a kept man, you can pay her back once you’ve gotten paid. There, I think that’s all the messages. Wear the clothes, eat breakfast, take the coin purse, oh, and of course, try not to do anything stupid. She said if I didn’t tell you that last part she’d hex me so my cock wouldn’t work for months. I quite believed her. So there, I’ve said it.”

Geralt grunts in response, uninterested in whether or not Yennefer would ruin the bard’s chances at shoving his cock into the next willing wench.

“Come sit with me, bring the tray over here.” Dandelion slides out from under the covers and pulls them up meticulously. There might be crumbs on the eiderdown but at least it wouldn’t be in their sheets. Geralt obliges him, and once the witcher is seated, he leans over to kiss him softly. “Is this alright?” he asks, after a moment, unsure Geralt’s really ready to accept the affection.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” he pulls away, taking a long drink of apple juice. He glances at it and gets that odd little fond look on his face he gets when he’s thinking of Yennefer. At least, the one he gets when things are going well, instead of the one he gets when they’ve fucked it all up. “Do you ask that to the hundreds of women you’ve bedded?”

“Yes. Every time,” Dandelion tells him in confusion. “Yennefer’s never asked you?”

“She can read minds,” Geralt points out.

“I suppose that would take away the mystery, yes. And save her from having to ask. You’ve never asked her?”

“I’ve told her what I’ve wanted, and she says yes or no as she pleases, but I haven’t phrased it as a question.”

“Hm. I suppose we have some time for me to teach you the value of questions,” Dandelion smiles in a way that makes Geralt’s stomach feel odd. He picks up a strawberry from the tray, surprised to see it there. Perhaps it had been dropped off the day before, since it’s not the usual sort of tavern fare. But the bread is warm and fresh, the butter is good, and there’s some sweet pastries to go with it all.

They both eat their fill, or close enough to it that it doesn’t matter. Dandelion sets the tray back on the table, rather than the floor. Odds are one of them will step in it. He leans in again, watching as Geralt closes his eyes and leans the rest of the way in so that their lips meet. They kiss a while, and passion grows, Geralt doesn’t move in any closer, but his breathing gets ragged. He’s kissed men, not by choice, necessarily. This doesn’t feel like what he’s done before, not at all. His heart has sped up, still slow for a human, but not as slow as it usually is. He wants Dandelion to enjoy this, too, and he likes the way the bard kisses him. One of the things he likes, if he’s being honest, is that it doesn’t hurt. The bard’s skin is soft, and he isn’t trying to bite at Geralt or control him through their mouths, he’s just kissing him. He tastes a bit like the apple juice and some of the preserve spread over the tarts.

His mouth is warm, and pliant, and Geralt likes when the bard uses his tongue, likes when he catches his lip sucking it into his mouth just a little, it feels good. Dandelion pulls back, cupping Geralt’s cheek and kissing him once on the bridge of his nose.

“What else might you like me to kiss?” he asks, his voice breathy and teasing. Geralt stares at him, pupils dilating to take in as much light as they can. “Ah, perhaps here, under your jaw?” he asks, lightly pressing a kiss to Geralt’s cheek before waiting, his breath lightly tickling Geralt’s neck.

“Yes,” he says suddenly, realizing that’s what’s stopping him from getting the offered affection. He tips his chin up just a bit to give Dandelion easier access and the bard uses that to his full advantage. He hadn’t known he could be this desperate for more just based on some kisses under his jaw. Not to say Yennefer hasn’t absolutely driven him mad with teasing, it’s just that she’s as impatient as he is. And she had far more fun teasing him below the belt than she did above it.

“And your neck? Do you like being kissed there, too?” Dandelion breathes against his skin, and Geralt’s whole body shivers.

“Yes,” he whispers, barely able to breathe as Dandelion starts covering the column of his throat with soft kisses. His hands fist into the sheets, he hasn’t been told to touch back, and it’s not Yennefer, and so he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He lets his head fall back, enjoying how soft the bard is. When he finds that there’s some tongue involved in this kind of kissing, too, he longs to do it back. “Can I… I …am I allowed to kiss you back?” he asks, coming down from the euphoria of it long enough to wonder what’s really going on.

“Of course you may,” Dandelion tells him, reaching out to take his hands and squeezing them softly before kissing the backs of them, and then his palms. He teasingly flicks a tongue over Geralt’s lifeline and the witcher twitches again.

“How do you want me?” he asks uneasily.

“What?” Dandelion asks, somewhat confused.

“That’s where it’s going, isn’t it? How will you want me, when we get there?”

“I…I don’t think I want you like what you’re saying,” Dandelion tells him, knowing Geralt will be hurt if they stop entirely, but also definitely not interested in penetrating the other man at this juncture. “I promised you kisses and a chance to understand the beauty of a well asked question, I didn’t say I wanted more. Do you?”

Geralt considers this very, very carefully. Heat has spread all through his stomach and groin, and his abused cock has decided to rise to the challenge against its best interests. Yennefer hadn’t lied about the efficacy of the oil she’d used, but he still doesn’t want to touch it. Or want anyone else touching it. He could of course, take Dandelion’s cock in a few other ways, depending on what the bard wants, but no, he doesn’t think he does. He wouldn’t mind a release, but Yennefer isn’t here to trick him into it with words alone. “Not right now,” he says hesitantly, unsure that’s the right answer.

“Will you lie down for me?” the bard asks softly, “And try to relax just a little, I won’t hurt you. And you only have to say stop and I will.” He watches as Geralt settles back on the bed, clearly aroused but also, a little concerned. “We don’t have to do any of this,” Dandelion reminds him, lying down next to him, nuzzling his neck and chest. He waits for a while, before he does anything, choosing to hold Geralt and lightly stroke his arm and chest, waiting until the witcher seems more sure of himself.

Unsure how to make it start again, he’d liked the attention, and so he turns to kiss Dandelion softly, hoping the bard will start up again. “Who knew you would like this so much?” Dandelion teases him gently, kissing along his jaw and neck again, staying in the parameters of what they’d already agreed on. After a while, the bard pauses, and chews his lip for a few seconds. “Can I ask you something odd?”

“Hm?” Geralt looks at him, eyebrows raised in surprise and a little concern.

“Are you and Yennefer, are you two… kind to each other, or has she left you some of those scars I’ve seen?” he asks, unsure what answer he wants to hear.

“We don’t do this,” he spreads his hands. Which isn’t to say they don’t kiss and cuddle, they do both. But it either is a prelude or a postlude to making love. Then he forces himself to answer the question asked, not deflect away. “She’s very kind to me,” he says carefully. No, she doesn’t bite at him, or scratch him up, or hit him. Not in bed. And not out of it, either. She might throw things around the room, she might scream, but he knocks things over and yells right back. So not always kind, but when in bed, yes.

“Good,” Dandelion tells him, and resumes kissing him.

Geralt pulls back just a bit, “What does it matter?” he asks, confused.

“Just that I wish everyone you went to bed with was kind to you. I know that hasn’t always been the case, and it might not be in the future,” he remembers every word Yennefer said to him. “But I can hope the people who matter most to you, or at least the people you bed most, make it an experience you enjoy rather than one you dread.”

Not sure how to answer, or what to do with any of that, Geralt leans in to kiss Dandelion again. The bard smiles against his lips.

“One track mind?” he asks in a lightly mocking tone. Geralt snorts in response but gasps lightly when the bard kisses over his pulse, and all the way down to where his neck meets his shoulder. “Oh, Witcher, it seems your shirt is in the way of you receiving any more of my affection, do you want to keep it on, or should I help you get it off?”

“Off,” Geralt tells him immediately, curious to see where else the bard wants to kiss him. Divested of his shirt, he leans back into the bed again, waiting for more. Dandelion almost laughs, but he knows Geralt wouldn’t understand. The witcher is wriggling like a new puppy, eager for someone to scratch behind his ears. Leaning over him, he kisses him in earnest, one hand cupping his cheek.

He can sing songs, he can travel with Geralt, he can share his body’s warmth, and now, he can kiss him senseless. “Do you like having your collarbones kissed, or the tops of your shoulders?” the bard teases his skin, breath warm against Geralt’s chest.

“Let’s find out,” the witcher suggests, and he shivers a bit when Dandelion lightly kisses his way from one side of the witcher’s chest to the other, lingering over his collar bones and then trailing back up his neck to his mouth. On accident, in a few places, the bard has left a few light bruises, and he frowns a bit at himself. Geralt’s eyes are closed, and he’s started to melt into the bed, finally trusting he won’t have to face anything without warning. The bard teasingly kisses down his arms, too, more for the sake of doing it than anything else. But he does find that there are spots that make the witcher shiver a little, and even if it’s not the kind of shiver he’d want in bed, it’s not the bad kind, either. He learns, to his delight, that even with all the sword callouses, Geralt’s hands are quite sensitive and he’s almost ticklish when it comes to having his palms kissed.

“If I sit on top of you, will that make you uncomfortable?”

“No,” Geralt tells him, opening his eyes for the first time in what feels like ages. When Dandelion slowly slips a leg over his hips and then transfers his weight, Geralt moans softly, unable to help it. The bard is just barely brushing him in a very sensitive area.

“I can get back off you,” Dandelion promises him, keeping still. “It’s no difference to me.” He hadn’t planned on kissing any lower than Geralt’s hips as it was. To go lower would feel unfair, somehow, since he had no intention of trying to take things further. He’d meant the kisses to be both soothing and arousing, but had intended to end on the soothing note, rather than the other.

“No,” Geralt, grips his thighs carefully. “No, this is good,” he breathes and rocks his hips just a little.

“None of that now,” Dandelion lightly swats his arm. “We agreed not to do that, do you remember?”

“I do, but I might live to regret it.”

“You might,” Dandelion agrees. “There will be other chances, I’m sure.” He settles himself a bit more comfortably, making sure his weight is evenly distributed. Geralt twitches under him and Dandelion smiles. “I quite like how you look at this angle. Perhaps I’ll just sit and watch you for a few moments?”

Geralt gives him a look and bucks his hips just enough to throw the bard off balance and knock him forward.

“Oh, for shame, you’re lucky I didn’t crack my head on yours, or hit you or something on the way down,” Dandelion scolds, unsurprised Geralt caught him with no problem. He is a little surprised Geralt is holding him close and wonders if perhaps he should have stayed at the witcher’s side. He wasn’t trying to push things. In fact, he was trying to stop himself from kissing too low. “If I kiss you to the top of your pants, will that be alright?” he asks, and Geralt nods, threading his fingers through Dandelion’s hair affectionately.

Permission granted the bard allows himself to explore the witcher’s chest. He makes notes of which scars are sensitive, and which aren’t. Some make Geralt jump just a little and Dandelion knows he’d rather those not be touched again just from the way he moves. He’s learning the witcher’s silent preferences, knowing full well Geralt wouldn’t speak up. He isn’t especially interested in the scars to begin with, but he can hardly kiss more than a few inches of skin before landing on another. When he starts to edge near Geralt’s nipples, the witcher stops breathing entirely, and Dandelion edges away and feels the other man relax.

“Sensitive?” he asks, looking up. When Geralt shakes his head mutely, Dandelion mentally shrugs and works his way down to where Geralt’s pants cover his skin and stops. He has a feeling there’s some sort of horror story there, or there’s quite the opposite, and the arousal would be too much to suffer through with no climax. Done, at least for the time being, he’s worked himself up a bit, too, and it feels good when he sits back a bit and knows Geralt is still hard. He eases himself off his partner and settles next to him, kissing his cheek and jaw slowly, and then his lips. He nuzzles Geralt and gently strokes his hair, letting his fingertips slide languidly up and down the witcher’s arm and over his chest. He keeps up the gentle stroking and reassurance until he can see Geralt is completely relaxed. He glances down to check he hasn’t left the witcher wanting in any way and is relieved to see he hasn’t. He’d wound him down quite effectively.

“I should go meet Yen,” he says softly, kissing the bard a few times. He’s somewhat overwhelmed by how patient Dandelion is, Geralt would have had them both naked and rutting like animals in his place. Not that he really sleeps that way with his loved ones. Or anyone, if he has the choice in the matter. All the same he would have lost control and had to seek release. Oddly satisfied, and oddly warm, he nuzzles Dandelion a bit, pressing kisses on his face and lips.

“And I have some places to be as well, if I recall.” With a final lingering kiss, the bard drags himself out of the bed and changes into something appropriate to busk in.

Geralt drags himself up, as well, and changes into the clothing Yennefer left for him. It fits well, and this doublet is a touch looser, which makes him smile. He hates these stupid poncey outfits with all his heart. But she’ll look at him a certain way, and it’ll be worth it. He buckles on his daggers but leaves his swords. They leave the inn together and split up at the door. Geralt wanders about, Yennefer’s coin purse emptied into the compartment in his belt. There’s nothing he sees that’s worth buying, and so he doesn’t spend any of the coin. A few things catch his eye, but he knows Yennefer wants for nothing. Dandelion, he wouldn’t even know what to buy him, and so he buys nothing. The stable boy from before goes racing past him, stops, spins on a heel and runs back over.

“She was jus’ askin’ me t’fetch y’sir,” he pants out, giving Geralt another winning gap-toothed smile. Geralt flips him a copper and it disappears before even seeming to reach the boy. “This way, then!” he waves his hand eagerly, looking back periodically to see if Geralt was keeping up with him. The witcher easily follows the boy through the crowd, no matter how dense it gets. When the boy sees Geralt has found Yennefer’s booth, he gets close enough to receive a coin from her, and then disappears into the crowd.

Yennefer speaks to the maid helping her run her stall and walks away for a few moments to come over to Geralt. He notices her dress matches his doublet and he feels a bit of warmth from it. Thinking back hard, he realizes her dress the day before had had violet threading it so that they had matched then, too. She slips her arms around him and hugs him, he presses into her happily, humming low in his throat.

“Keeping busy?”

“Quite. I’ve had to send the boy back twice for supplies I left in the stables or behind the bar.”

“Thank you for the boots,” he tells her sincerely, leaning in to kiss her. She kisses him back briefly and pulls away.

“Don’t muss my lipstick,” she warns him with a smile. “There’ll be plenty of time for kissing later.”

“What if I want to kiss you in public?” he asks her.

“I didn’t say you couldn’t kiss me, I said don’t muss my lipstick,” she teases back, and he smiles at her. He presses a careful kiss to her cheek, instead, tasting the powders of her makeup on his lips after. She glances up at him and catches his chin and carefully uses her thumb to brush away lipstick from the corner of his mouth. When he gives her a confused look, she shows him her thumb and he laughs.

“Did you eat lunch?” he asks her, wondering if she’s had time.

“I haven’t, I thought I’d wait for you,” she smiles again. “I did purchase lunch early this morning, I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.”

“I think I found plenty of things you enjoy. And plenty to eat,” she knows how much he can clear away when he’s hungry. The only difficulty in housing him had been how much he’d eaten. At least he’d done most of his own shopping in that regard, going to the markets in the morning to pick up more supplies. “Sylvia, we’ll be close by if you need me, just under that tree,” she indicates one a few yards away from the stall. “Can you manage?”

“Yes ma’am. There’s a lull now as is,” the woman bobs.

“After we eat, I’ll spell you a bit. You can wander the market as you fancy.” She’d purchased the maid lunch already and had given her the bundle of food at the start. She picks up her purchases from the morning and she and Geralt sit together under the tree. They eat simple food, but it’s good. When he’s sure it won’t annoy her, he puts an arm around her shoulders, and she leans into him.

“How did your morning go with the bard?” she asks, he seems fine. So perhaps Dandelion had changed his mind about forcing Geralt to confront the miseries in his past.

“Pleasantly.”

“I told him to let your poor cock heal, so when you say pleasantly…?” She raises her eyebrow.

“Neither one of us has done anything to it,” he tells her reproachfully. She snorts and he relaxes, realizing she was teasing him a bit. “Not that it would matter if we did,” he pushes.

“No, it wouldn’t. It’s your choice what you do with him,” she tells him easily. “Although I would be somewhat cross with him, and you, if he’d worn it out again before I had a chance to.”

Pleasure hums through him at the thought of what she might have in mind and he shifts under the tree and moves his leg. She glances down and looks at him in amusement. He chooses not to be embarrassed, he can’t help it, after all.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” she informs him, patting his leg.

“You helped me,” he tells her, letting the side of his head rest against the top of hers. He threads their fingers together on his thigh, running his thumb over the back of her hand. “I feel better because you helped me,” he tells her softly.

“Even if I’m cross at you, I’ll help you if you’re in that sort of state,” she tells him. “Even if I swear I’ll kill you if I see you again, if you show up looking how you did two days ago at my door, I’ll put you to rights. And then if I’m still angry with you I’ll put you out on your arse, but until then…I wouldn’t leave you like that.”

“Thank you,” he tells her, knowing she means it. She might not be as gentle, or as kind, but she would help him. They sit for a little, and then Yennefer’s stall gets busy and she reluctantly stands up.

“Will you help for a bit? I know you can read all my labels and you have some idea of what things should cost.”

“If not I’ll ask,” he informs her, agreeing indirectly to help out. He gets up, dusts off his pants and follows her back over.

“You can go for a bit, Sylvia, I have help. But I do expect you back within the half hour.”

“Yes’m,” Sylvia curtsies and ducks away, her lunch in hand.

“How much are you paying her?” Geralt asks idly.

“I already paid the tavern owner for her, why would I pay her?” Yennefer asks, looking at him from under her eyelashes.

“I know that’s not how you are,” he says quietly, watching a few women looking over the small bottles and other remedies.

“A handful of silver, I didn’t count. She’s been useful to me. She even repaired your clothes when she washed them. It’s the least I could do.”

Geralt stays with her well after Sylvia’s half hour has run out, even with the maid’s return the three of them are busy for a while at least. When it slows down, he takes some time to kiss Yennefer, making sure not to mess up her lipstick before he heads back to the inn. His intention is to sleep for a while and then prepare himself for taking down what he thinks is some type of ghoul. He’s not sure, and he'd been out of certain ingredients for his elixirs, which he’d gotten from the sorcerers at the castle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had an 8 hour zoom meeting. Please comment. Give me some bright spot somewhere in my day. It's too cold to go run, I didn't have time to cook tacos.... I post this in hopes there will be commentary and that you guys liked it.


	4. Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Geralt just can't catch a break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's late & short and still incomplete. I just... am not feeling up for much, I guess.

Dandelion is playing for another packed inn, and Yennefer has put away what little remaining vials and jars she has for the next day. She’d picked up some fresh pastries, assuming after his hunt Geralt might want to eat. She’d also informed Sylvia he would probably be revoltingly messy after the hunt and would need hot water, so to be ready for that. She’d more or less taken over the barmaid as her own personal maid, whenever she needed something. The woman was smart, and attentive, and capable.

She half expects Geralt won’t be back until morning, sometimes it takes him a while to hunt down whatever he’s looking for, but usually once the sun’s up he quits for the day and tries again the next.

“You don’t see much concerned, Madam Sorceress,” the bartender tells her nervously.

“About Geralt?” she asks in surprise. “No, I’m not. He didn’t ask for anything, he has whatever he needed from the castle, and he’s got his swords and armor. He might take till morning. If he can’t find it, he’ll go out again tomorrow as soon as the sun sets. He’s dogged about these kinds of things.” She looks around the common area, rolling her eyes a bit when the bard winks at some charming young girl.

“Its killed a lot of people, miss,” he presses a bit.

“I’ve discovered I don’t know your name, sir.”

“Tobeus,” he tells her. “Most just call me Tobe.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Tobe. Geralt will be fine. Or if he comes in disoriented and cut up, I’ll patch him back together just like last time,” she shrugs. It wouldn’t be the first time, and with some time not using her magic, she feels much better. She should be able to put him to rights no matter what trouble he gets himself into. “It won’t be as horrible as the time he found a monster in a midden,” she points out.

“Will you be needing Sylvia and my stable boys again tomorrow?”

“I don’t think I’ll need the boys. But I might need Sylvia for half the day if she’s willing.”

“I think she will be. I’ll ask her later.”

“Thank you. I suspect you are also asking if I have more coin for you?”

“Oh, what? No. Not at all. You paid me plenty for the day, and if your witcher kills that monster then, well. It’ll be another service you’ve all done us. Honestly, Madam Yennefer, those bastards in the castle? That was service enough, I should think.”

“You’re welcome,” she shakes her head a bit. She’d finished her wine, and her braised lamb and potatoes.

As promised, Dandelion plays two sets, and when it’s over he collects many coins. He offers the Tobe a few and is told not to bother. With a smile, he makes the coins disappear. He also takes his share up of the coins from patrons seeking to curry favor by buying him drinks. “That’s quite the haul. Can I exchange some of this coin back for a wineskin sent up to the room? Maybe two?” he asks.

“Don’t bother, keep your coin. This is more than I’ve pulled in a while. ‘Sides, I charged ‘em for the wine and you didn’t drink any. I don’t mind losing a coin or two to actually give you some win,” Tobe smiles. Another few nights like this and he’ll be well able to afford some repairs and perhaps some new cookware. Not to mention the notoriety of being the only inn hosting a powerful sorceress, famous bard, and famous witcher will lend him custom for months if not years to come.

They go back up to the room together, and Dandelion closes his eyes and naps on the bed while Yennefer works for a while, mixing up new potions to sell. She also lays out several different healing remedies, given she has no idea what Geralt might get himself into. She’s not expecting much of anything, he hadn’t seemed too worried, either.

Exhausted, she knows it’s late and looks around. Dandelion is asleep, at least. She pushes the spare pillows into the center of the bed, so he can’t get near her, and blows out the candle before changing and getting into bed herself. She falls asleep quickly.

It only feels like a few minutes later when the door is being pounded on and shouting is coming from outside. Dandelion jerks away “I did not fuck your wife!” he says indignantly, then looks around in the dark. “What’s happening?”

“We’ll soon find out,” she lifts her hand and a globe of light floats above her palm. Getting up she throws a cloak over her nightgown and opens the door. It’s the stable boy.

“Sylvia’s gone to fetch him, ma’am, he done killed it, but he’s walking funny, come help, miss!” Yennefer breaks into a run, shoving people or knocking them down once she’s out of the inn. There’s a bit of a crowd, and Dandelion is hot on her heels.

Taking a deep breath, the bard uses every last bit of air in his lungs to shout “Clear a path you fuckers!” It helps; he can be sonorously loud when he wants to be and the crowd lets them through a bit easier.

Yennefer can see the sun has barely started to crest the horizon, so some hours had passed. Geralt is coated in muck and blood, and she can see he’s favoring his arm for all she’s still not close enough yet. He tosses the head of some beast at the feet of the alderman. His eyes are still black from the elixirs and his skin hideously pale. He’s panting, which doesn’t seem right, and he staggers a few steps forward.

Sylvia, as the boy had said, is at the edge and she goes over to brace him up, a hand under his good arm.

Dandelion, never one to fall down on an opportunity, starts singing, hoping to forestall the crowd being frightened. “Toss a coin to your witcher,” he trills, and half the people join him, some of them actually tossing coins. The stable boy races about, collecting them and offering them to Geralt. He holds out a pouch to the boy who stuffs it full of coins and then hands it back over. Some come close enough to press his hand in thanks, or personally give him one of their coppers.

Yennefer ignores all of it, she can read what’s in his head and she has to get to him before then. She makes it as he starts to crumple and looks at his arm and swears violently. People seem to suddenly notice he’s hurt and the crowd parts. The barkeep, Tobe, in his nightshirt steps over and hauls Geralt’s good arm over his shoulders.

“Sylvia, go get hot water ready,” he tells her, and she races away, the crowd moving aside. “You weren’t worried before, Madam Sorceress, are you worried now?” Tobe asks, trying not to look at the witcher’s other arm. “Ah, there he is, always out looking for gossip, lazy bastard, Irvin, get over here!” he shouts. His stablemaster trots over. “Get him by the legs, he’s about to keel over completely! Up, I said pick him up!” he urges irritably. Irvin does as he’s bid, and Dandelion dances around them trying to help and stay out of the way all at the same time.

When he sees the stable boy, “You, make sure there’s bandaging in the bathing chambers, lots of it.” The bone sticking through Geralt’s arm is a grisly sight.

The inn isn’t far and before they know it, they have Geralt laid out on a bench in the bathing chamber. Dandelion starts working his armor loose immediately, hissing in sympathy when he sees more injuries. “Gave you a run for your money, didn’t it? That’s alright, we’ll get you put back together, you’ll be fine.”

“Sylvia, I left bottles out on the table, I need all of them.”

“Yes’m.”

“Stable boy, what’s your name?”

“Niko, ma’am, here’s those bandages the bard called for.”

“Good, set them over here. Niko, does blood frighten you?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Good, then come put your hands here on his arm and don’t let go. Tobe if you could please hold his shoulders, keep him from jerking them. Press hard, he’s quite strong. Dandelion sit on him if you have to, but don’t let him jerk about. Niko, I’m going to pull his arm right, it’s going to be awful. You have to hold his upper arm steady so I can set the bone, can you do that?”

“Yes’m, I helped m’ma butcher t’sheep afore the monster et her,” he tells Yennefer. He grips Geralt’s arm carefully above the elbow.

“We get one chance to do it right the first time, and then we risk splintering bone off and damaging his arm permanently. If you can’t do it, get the fuck out now, and find me someone else.”

“Irvin, if he’s as strong as she says, you’d best get your stupid arse over here and help me pin him down. Madam, he’s bleeding rather a lot, I think we should hurry.”

Sylvia comes running back into the room just as Yennefer pulls Geralt’s arm into place. He bucks hard and shouts, regaining consciousness just to lose it again moments after. Dandelion finds he’s almost thrown from where he’d chosen to sit on the witcher’s legs but manages to limit the movement enough the others can hold him. Niko doesn’t so much as twitch, and he shifts to hold below the elbow, too, hands covered in blood.

“Y’gotta clean it, ma’am.”

“I know, scamp, don’t tell me how to heal,” she tells him, looking at the bottles Sylvia holds up for her. She takes one, pulls the cork with bloody fingers and dumps it over the flesh where the bone ran through. Geralt jerks again, hard, but Niko holds his arm with steady hands. “You’re wasted in the stables,” she tells him.

“I like th’horses,” he tells her defensively.

“Fair enough.” When she sees other maids bringing hot water, she sighs in relief. “Bring two buckets here of that, and then fill the tub halfway,” she barks out orders and then the minute the bucket is near her, she sticks her hands in it, hissing against the heat.

“We just finished boiling it,” one of the maids says in horror.

“It’s fine,” Yennefer says, her hands free of blood. “Dandelion don’t vomit where I can see or hear you,” she tells him disgustedly. The second bucket is full of hot water, but she waits a bit for it to cool as she uses her magic to pull Geralt’s bones together. He struggles a bit under the hands still pinning him. She sees he’d chosen the recently mended shirt and personally feels it was a practical choice. She tears the remainder of his sleeve away and uses her belt knife to slit the shirt up the middle and off his arms, so they won’t have to try and pull it off him.

“Well, fuck,” Tobe breathes.

“I suppose it wasn’t just some bastard alghoul or something,” she looks at the wounds. He’s got new bite marks that his shirt had hidden. Whatever bit him just pushed the fabric into the wound without tearing it, and she’ll have to pick threads out of him before she can do anything about healing his skin. “I think he would have handled it better. Or there were more than he expected.” She doubts he got it wrong, but perhaps he hadn’t been feeling as good as he’d thought, or whatever he’d needed that he’d sold himself for hadn’t even been what he’d been promised. She’ll find out later, but she had stopped by the stocks. They were empty, but she’d been informed by a local that that was because the alderman didn’t leave corpses around. They stank and attracted carrion.

Piecing his skin back into place where it should be, she doesn’t think they’ll need stitches, she’s already put his veins back together. The skin can wait while she makes sure nothing else is more serious. Then she’ll heal that up, too, or worst case, she’ll stitch him together and leave him with even more scars. She efficiently cuts a long length of bandaging and wraps it around his arm from his bicep to almost his wrist to keep his arm immobile, so he won’t break the freshly healed bone or undo anything else she’d done.

“Into the tub with him and keep his arm out of it. We should prop it up, or, better yet, Dandelion just hold it higher than his heart, so he’ll stop bleeding.”

Willing hands transfer the witcher to the tub, where Yennefer washes out the bites with potions that make the blood bubble and Dandelion gag. Niko runs off and she’s surprised when he comes back with a stool and towels, settling it, with Dandelion’s help, under Geralt’s arm and cushioning it with the fabric.

Geralt comes to, sees all the people crowding him and almost faints again in shock. His arm hurts and he isn’t sure if it had been broken or not, but he thinks he remembers seeing the bone sticking out of his clothes. It had gone right through. His leg hurts as does his shoulder and chest, and he tries to focus long enough to assess his injuries. Then he notices it’s Yennefer bent over him, and he passes back out.

“Fucking-no, not again, Geralt wake up, Geralt. Geralt dammit what bit you? Geralt?” she pats his cheek hard and his eyelids flutter open for a few seconds before starting to close. She pinches his cheek instead, hard enough to bruise and he lifts his head, more awake. “What bit you?”

“Fucking ghouls,” he tells her. “I thought a small pack, I got them all, only brought one head,” he tells her, looking at Dandelion. “Their bodies are all at the edge, I stacked them together. Took the biggest one’s head as proof. They can count them. I’ll check tomorrow, make sure I got them all.”

“You’re rambling,” Dandelion tells him gently. “We’ll send someone to check once the sun’s fully up. You’ll be fine.”

“Did they pay me already?” he asks in confusion.

“Yes,” Dandelion smiles. “Just like the song.”

“Fuck your stupid song,” he complains. Then swears violently, jerking hard when Yennefer does something to his leg. She holds up the bit of branch she pulled out of him in answer to his unspoken question and he tries to lean back.

“Out you come, we’ll put you in a tub with clean water, mind his arm,” and willing hands pull him from the water again, and keep him upright while new water is dumped into the other tub and the dirtied one is taken to be emptied. He’s loaded into the fresh bath before he even knows what’s happening. “Don’t fill it, don’t fill it, just bring extra buckets.”

“My arm hurts,” he informs her, much the same way he’d tried to explain to her about the curse two days before.

“Yes, darling, I already set the bone and veins, be patient.”

“I have elixirs.”

“I know,” she tells him. “I don’t need you to take those, I have something better that won’t mix well, but we’ll get you to bed first. Let me finish patching you up.”

Thankfully it looks like most of the damage to his back is bruising. She reattaches a few ribs he’d broken off in the fight and ignores the bloody scrapes on his legs other than to dump the disinfectant over them. “I need distilled alcohol, I’m out of potion.”

“I’ll get it,” Tobe tells her. “Irvin you do whatever the lady tells you. I don’t care if she says to paint your ass blue and swing from the rafters upside down, you do it.”

Geralt is mostly surprised no one’s hoping he’ll die of his injuries, for all he’s not sure they’re that severe. He had lost a lot of blood, he thinks, but he’s not sure. His head feels foggy and he’s oddly light. “Yen.”

“Yes, I know about your arm,” she tells him impatiently.

“No, not that. Yen I need a bucket.”

“Don’t let him bend that arm,” she snaps at whoever’s listening as someone thrusts a bucket to her that she plants directly in front of Geralt. He empties his stomach and she sighs. “It would be nice if perhaps you could not put me through almost the same thing in less than two days.” Her nightgown should be bloody to the elbows, but it’s never stained. Not once. She’d rolled the sleeves up a few times and it had refused to stay. Sylvia steps over and rolls them up for her again. “You’ve got leaves in your hair, Geralt. Did the ghouls make you a posy and a flower crown?”

“I hit my head,” he tells her. She understands he means he was tossed and hit it, and that’s how he got forest detritus in his hair.

“Yes, I find myself unsurprised. You’re acting especially stupid.” She puts her hands flat on either side of his head and closes her eyes. No active bleeding in his skull, but he won’t feel very good the next morning. The bone’s cracked, and she puts that together, too. Blood drips from her nose over her lips. “Fuck,” she slaps her hand against the side of the tub.

“You’re running out of magic,” Dandelion says, looking at her in horror.

“He’s mostly fine, now,” she says, surprised when Niko holds out a torn bit of bandage for her to wipe her nose with. “If we can just get the rest of the filth off him, and keep that arm steady, he’ll be fine.”

“Don’t burn yourself out,” Dandelion cautions her. He eyes the deep bites in Geralt’s skin in consternation. They should need stitching, and while he can do it, he’d rather not.

“I can get the village hedge witch,” Sylvia offers. “She isn’t a powerful mage, but she handles most of our scrapes and broken bones without too much trouble.”

“I’m already here,” she comes in with Tobe, who is holding the bottle of alcohol Yennefer had asked for. 

“Geralt, you will not like this,” Yennefer tells him flatly and pours some of the alcohol over more of his scrapes and cuts. He swears profusely, and Niko’s face lights up as he learns some new words. She looks at the hedge witch and decides that if the old woman hasn’t killed anyone yet, she won’t kill Geralt.

The old woman pulls things from her satchel before pressing them into the bites on Geralt’s chest and shoulders. She mutters some words that Yennefer doesn’t recognize, half thinking the old woman is a fraud. At least yarrow won’t hurt any, it does help stop bleeding and the chamomile should help his skin heal faster. But when the crone pulls her hand away from Geralt’s chest, the herbs fall away and his skin is smooth.

“What?” Dandelion asks in shock. He’s never seen anything like that. Even Yennefer would still leave a scar. No one says a word when she unwraps the bandaging around Geralt’s arm and repeats the process with the ragged flaps of skin where his bone had broken through.

She looks him over, catches his chin and tilts his head as he meets her gaze. She pulls out something different from her bag, holding it to his temple and chanting. She smiles at Yennefer who is staring at her in stunned silence. She doesn’t ask for coin, just leaves the room. Geralt feels considerably less concussed, and far less horrible than he had. Still woozy from blood loss he doesn’t even try to get up.

“The fuck was that?” Dandelion asks.

“Our village healer,” Tobe tells them. “She fixes what she pleases, and we make sure she has food and a properly furnished home. I guess she took a liking to your witcher, usually she only fixes one thing and leaves the rest. Never seen her do three before.”

Yennefer bandages his arm again anyway, but only from below his elbow to his wrist. She’s not sure the healing went deeper than the skin, and it’s a very real possibility he’ll rebreak his arm. She’d had to spread herself thin to heal the cracks in his skull and ribs, so she hadn’t done a proper job for any of it. Patching it enough he could heal the rest of the way on his own had to be good enough.

Geralt lets Dandelion help him up out of the tub and swears when Yennefer pours alcohol over some of the scrapes on his legs that had been previously submerged in water. Then another bucket is dashed over his head, and Niko holds onto his arm. Geralt debates trying to shake him free but Yennefer’s keeping it wrapped for a reason, and if the boy helps keep it dry, so be it. He’s exhausted.

“Dandelion,” he says, having trouble focusing.

“Yes.”

“Where were we when… we met… we met her, we saw her.”

“That’s… specific, and surprisingly helpful Geralt,” Dandelion says sarcastically, picking up a towel and helping to dry him off. Some of them come away bloody and Yennefer starts spreading salve over his scrapes and bandaging him. “I think we have enough help for now, thank you,” Dandelion says, dismissing the others from the room.

Sylvia stoops and picks up the remains of Geralt’s clothes with an odd expression. “Madam Yennefer?”

“Yes?”

“These could be sold, ma’am. He saved us from monsters that’ve been plaguing us for generations. I could cut them into scraps and people would buy them for some coppers…”

“I don’t know that I got them all,” Geralt says seriously, wishing the hedge witch had had a magical cure for blood loss. “I’ll check tomorrow, and then you can go about selling rags to your heart’s content.” His head aches and he rubs at his forehead and then his temples. “Dandelion, the woman, the elves…you got the lute, where…?”

“Posada? You mean when we met the Lady of the…” he realizes what Geralt’s trying to tell him about the hedge witch and considers it. “I think you’re right, yes. Too bad she left you the headache.”

“I don’t see two of everything now,” Geralt shrugs.

Once he’s bandaged and completely dry, Yennefer hands him a fresh towel. They’d cut up his clothes to get them off quickly and she doesn’t see a point in sending anyone to fetch any when he’s just going to go to sleep.

“I quite like this town, other than the fact you keep getting mauled,” Dandelion tells Geralt. “We’ve never had this much help. Much less free help, anywhere we’ve gone before. The people actually seem to like you just fine. None of that horseshit about hating witchers for no good reason,” he says helpfully.

Geralt considers the balance of bad to good in the town and decides that it is nice people were willing to help him. He’s had other friends in other towns, but this place collectively seemed to welcome him. And as far as he’s concerned the ‘bad’ is just part of his job. The town can’t be blamed. Light-headed, he allows Yennefer to guide him out, one hand clutching the towel so it won’t fall.

“Mind your arm,” she tells him. “I know the witch fixed up your skin and stopped the bleeding but I don’t know if she fixed the bone. I had to do a lot of patchwork. You know I could heal it completely, but I left it fractured because you had so many broken ribs and a cracked skull,” she tells him. He nods a little, accepting her admonishment.

When they open the door and start up the stairs, Geralt stares at the common area of the inn. There are people there, still in their nightshirts, waiting. There’s some low cheers, and a few people clap each other on the arm or the back. He can hear them saying things like ‘see he’s alright.’ ‘Pulled through just fine.’ ‘Our healer lady fixed him up.’ Unable to believe it, he wonders if he cracked his head harder than he thought. Or if the poison had entirely addled his wits two days ago. Stunned, he stares until Dandelion urges him forward. He can’t believe there’s an entire town of people who saw him covered in monster guts lugging a head and were still happy to see him. They’d helped him. Paid him far more than he’d asked, just judging by the amount of coppers he’d seen all over.

Disoriented he allows the bard and sorceress to herd him up the stairs and put him to bed. None of it feels real anyway, he might as well sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys are doing well. I'm slowly going insane here, so. :} Y'know the drill, comment and distract me?   
> I have to try and figure out how to write the part of this I don't know how to, so I can write the end. The end is easy.


	5. Part 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, warning for gratuitous smut? I guess. I don't know. Maybe that's overstating it. There's also lots of not smut, so you can kinda skim if that's not your deal.   
> Unbeta'd, so like. Uh, MS word occasionally will change a word on me if I misspell it, so while I think I caught all the potentially heinously weird typos, I could have missed some. God knows, whichever ones I did, will probably be in the parts of the fic that were the most embarrassing to write because life hates me. :D

He wakes up to see the sun has come up, and they’d put him into a shirt and some underclothes before they’d gone to sleep themselves. Yennefer is warm at his back, one arm tight around his middle. It takes him a few seconds to realize he isn’t resting on a pillow, but on Dandelion’s chest and the odd drumming noise is the bard’s heart. He nuzzles in closer, not thinking much of it. He’s a little chilled despite them both being on either side of him.

Dandelion smiles, glad to see Geralt awake. He’d had some trouble sleeping and kept waking up thinking he would find Geralt dead or missing. He runs his fingers through the witcher’s hair and feels more than hears the soft hum of pleasure it causes. “Good morning,” he says softly, and Geralt hums again. They hadn’t gone to sleep in this arrangement at all. It had taken both he and Yennefer several minutes to work Geralt into his shirt without waking him up, and then they’d curled up on either side of him. Yennefer had gone to sleep with her head over Geralt’s heart, an arm resting on his chest. Dandelion had curled his back into the witcher’s side, his head pillowed on the other man’s bicep.

He smiles a little more when Geralt presses his hips in against Dandelion’s leg. “A very good morning then,” the bard corrects himself, bemused. “I suppose later, something could be done for that,” he adds. He knows if he keeps his voice barely above a whisper, Geralt will hear him just fine and he won’t bother Yennefer any. It’s not as if Geralt’s especially conversational in the morning when he first wakes up as it is. He strokes the witcher’s hair, and gasps lightly when Geralt runs a hand up his leg. “She will kill us both if you wake her up.”

“Then be quiet,” Geralt whispers back, tracing Dandelion’s bulge through his pants with a wicked smile. The bard can’t help but grin back even if perhaps risking angering Yennefer isn’t on his to-do list for the morning. Geralt keeps himself well entertained with ghostly touches, meant to tease and torment rather than bring satisfaction. Dandelion silently resolves to do the exact same and to drive the witcher just as mad in turn. Worse. He’ll do worse, he’ll bring him to the edge, stop, and start all over again until Geralt begs for mercy.

The bard has to work hard to breathe slowly through his nose as Geralt continues to taunt him, occasionally firming up the touch just enough the bard gets his hopes up, and then Geralt decides to do something else entirely. Such as trace the hem of his shirt along his skin, which is no where near his crotch but still oddly arousing.

Yennefer shifts, and Geralt doesn’t stop for even a second even if the bard forgets how to breathe. She stretches out, yawning, and sits up, then glances over. “Really?” she asks, and Geralt shrugs in turn. “Well don’t let me stop you,” she tells Dandelion, knowing full well Geralt doesn’t care. He might have, had it been her and him, instead. But he’s used to his times with men being a bit more public overall. She leans over to kiss his cheek, and he turns his head to kiss her. “You can’t handle us both,” she tells him dryly. “Although I’m glad you’re feeling better.” She takes a few seconds to stroke him through his smallclothes which makes him twitch. “I’ll see to breakfast,” she announces, slipping out of the bed and starting to prepare herself for the day. She really doesn’t care if they want to keep going or not. She has other things to do and she knows Geralt well enough to know even if he thinks he has the stamina for them both right now, he doesn’t.

“Do you need your shirt?” Dandelion asks, and Geralt shakes his head. “Oh good, then let’s get it off,” he suggests, and with a bit of help he has it tugged up and over and tossed to the side. “You’re still a bit bruised up, don’t you think? Are you sure you’re up for this?”

“Don’t I just have to lay here while you do whatever you want?” Geralt tries to make it sound like a joke, but Dandelion can tell the question is somewhat serious.

“Is this seriously how you have sex with people? You lie there and let them do what they want? Yennefer, do not tell me, do not dare to tell me this is how you two are?”

“No, of course not. Geralt, don’t be ridiculous. Just pretend he’s a woman, he’s needier than most, but it’ll make your life easier. He doesn’t intend to hurt you in bed.” She knows that Geralt’s unpleasant experiences aren’t solely with men, he’s had deeply unpleasant sex with women, too, but overall he seems less unsure of himself with them.

Dandelion squawks indignantly for a few seconds but is silenced when Geralt sits up to kiss him.

“Whatever you want, I can take it,” Geralt tells him quietly. “I’m healed up now, hardly sore.”

The bard stares at him, “You’re not going to take anything, now that you’ve said that. Not that I intended for that anyway. Do you truly think I aim to hurt you? Or that I’ll do to you what they did at the castle?”

“Isn’t that how it is with men?” Geralt asks softly, kissing Dandelion’s cheek in an attempt to end the conversation. The sooner it’s over the better. Then he’ll know how bad it will hurt so he can be prepared in the future if Dandelion wants to keep doing it. Or if, once his curiosity is satisfied, that will be the last time. He starts a bit when Yennefer sits next to them on the bed.

“It’s not supposed to hurt, Geralt,” she points out, mostly for Dandelion’s benefit. The bard can’t read minds, but she can. “It’s supposed to be pleasurable. That’s why they do it.”

“Well I know it’s pleasurable for the one doing it,” he points out.

“Yes, it’s supposed to feel good for both parties. You’ve just been…” she doesn’t know what to tell him. Cheated? Abused? Mistreated? “Deeply unlucky with your…” the correct word isn’t partners. She has no idea what it is. “Transactions. They haven’t quite upheld their end of the bargain.”

Right there, Dandelion decides perhaps no one should be fucking anyone until Geralt has some handle on what any of it should be, but at the same time he feels like if he pushes the witcher away entirely it will hurt him in other ways. “I have an idea,” Dandelion tells him quietly. He glances at Yennefer who tips her head at the small nightstand to his unspoken to query. “Perhaps I’ll just kiss you senseless again.”

“I’m going to eat elsewhere, and I’ll bring food up. Then I have one last day at the festival before I intend to enjoy it, now that everyone is here.” She leaves, hoping she’s interfered enough to protect them both.

“Just kiss?” Geralt asks, sounding almost disappointed.

“Well perhaps there could be more. Just a bit. Do you need undergarments, Geralt? Or can those be removed, too?” he asks teasingly. While he’s a little uncomfortable he wants to start here, and start small, and show Geralt it won’t be painful with him.

“No,” he says hoarsely, understanding, or at least guessing what the bard has planned. “It truly won’t hurt you?” he asks, thinking about the times he’s had a cock in his mouth. It had not been pleasant, but he’d done his best to manage.

“No, not at all. I’ll enjoy it just as much as you will, I should hope. Although, for the sake of saving us both some embarrassment, please try and refrain from moving your hips too much.” He can guess at the cause of the torn corners of Geralt’s mouth, and he’d rather not have the witcher think that was how it should be.

“I won’t move,” Geralt promises.

“That’s not quite what I mean, but we’ll get you there,” Dandelion promises, unsurprised by the fact Geralt is deeply curious and aroused. He kisses over the witcher’s legs, checking for permission each time he moves, and grinning against pale skin when he finds a spot high on Geralt’s thigh that makes him whine a little. He kisses over the line of his hips, and makes his way back down, just a few inches closer to center. Geralt’s cock brushes his cheek as he kisses down again, and he can hear the need in Geralt’s breathing. He licks once, from base to tip and Geralt gasps a little. It’s not as if no one’s sucked his cock before, it’s just no one’s seemed to want to draw out the experience.

He finds himself digging his hands into the bedsheets because he needs something to hold onto. When the bard finally stops tormenting him with kisses, and instead with barely there licks and touches, he thinks he might be getting paid back for the morning. He pushes his hips back into the mattress when finally, Dandelion takes him into his mouth. It’s hard to stop his hips from bucking. Especially with the bard making use of his hands and tongue at the same time. He squirms a bit, unable to help it, he has to move somehow, but he’s agreed to not thrust into the bard’s mouth. He knows it’s not the most comfortable of things to experience without warning, and he can’t blame Dandelion.

When the bard pulls away, stopping, Geralt makes a noise that can only be described as a whine. Trying not to laugh, Dandelion fails a bit and chuckles. “I can make it better,” he offers. “If you’ve truly wondered all this time what the appeal was of having something inside you, it tells me no one’s ever hit the right spot on you.”

Geralt tenses a bit, but he’s so curious it hurts.

Unsurprised to see Geralt tense up a bit, Dandelion smiles gently at him and holds up two fingers. “This is all I need. And I’d start with just one. There’s oil left on the nightstand for things like this,” he offers. “And if you don’t like it, we stop. It won’t please me for you to say yes if you want to say no,” he cautions. “I don’t know if I could touch you again, not trusting you to say no when you want to.”

“Just one?” he asks.

“Yes,” Dandelion agrees easily enough, he can see the hesitation.

“Yes,” he says quietly, looking trustingly at Dandelion. “It won’t hurt?”

“No, in fact I’ll be shocked if you notice at first. Well, you’ll notice, but I intend to keep you busy thinking about other things at the same time,” he reassures him.

“Yes,” he says a little more firmly. Dandelion kisses him gently for a while, and then grabs up the vial of oil. He feels almost relaxed about it. Almost. He’s a little nervous, but no one’s ever wanted to use fingers before. Usually they just rammed into him. He hears the pop of the cork, but barely notices because Dandelion is kissing down his body again, sternum to hips, and then takes him back into his mouth. The bard hadn’t lied, he hardly notices one finger at all. It’s not as if there’s a lack of sensation or he’s oblivious to it, it’s just that there’s this thing the bard does with his tongue and other hand at the same time that make it hard to focus on much else.

“Two?” Dandelion pulls back to ask after a few minutes, and it takes Geralt a bit to parse the meaning of the question. When the witcher nods, Dandelion goes back to work, and Geralt moans as quietly as he can manage. It’s a little uncomfortable and a little harder to ignore, but it doesn’t hurt. Not to mention he thinks he might come at any minute. The bard slows down and he tries not to whine in protest or do anything that might make him stop. But then the bard curls his fingers and Geralt feels something different.

“Oh,” he says softly, feeling stupid when Dandelion hits that spot again just right. With a soft ‘umph’ sound, he drops his head back to the bed.

“Yes, oh,” Dandelion tells him fondly, working him gently for a while. It’s a different sensation, and he wants Geralt to enjoy it on its own for a bit, without the distraction of his cock being sucked. When he knows Geralt is getting close to finishing, he lowers his mouth one last time.

Geralt arches his back when the heat unfurls across his body, muscles straining a bit. He isn’t sure if he warned Dandelion or not, he thinks he tried to. He hadn’t been able to keep his head at all with both Dandelion’s tongue and fingers working him to distraction. He’s hardly sure what’s happened, it feels like it took hours and was also over in seconds. He feels wrung out, almost, and oddly sleepy again.

Pleased to see Geralt lying back, completely relaxed into the bed like he’d melt into if he could, Dandelion sits up to enjoy the view. Geralt had tried to warn him before climaxing, but the bard had been prepared. He slips off the bed and gets the washbasin and a cloth. He wipes Geralt’s cock and stomach, gently cleaning up any mess from their activities. The witcher twitches a little, opening his eyes to see what’s happening.

“That’s cold,” he complains softly.

“Admit it’s not that cold, and that it feels almost nice,” Dandelion tells him haughtily. He can’t warm the water if he wanted to, he has no magic. But as heated as the witcher’s skin is, he has a feeling a little bit of coolness doesn’t feel bad. He rinses the cloth and wipes his own face and hands before rinsing it again and then wringing it out. “Here, hold still,” he says gently, wiping sweat off Geralt’s chest and limbs, watching the other man relax again.

“It feels nice,” the witcher agrees softly, appreciating the gentle strokes with the cool rag. He had felt a little overheated. He sighs a little as the bard runs the cloth over his thighs, and wipes over his backside a bit in case any of the oil had spread. “Will it always feel like that with you?” he asks softly, half asleep.

“Yes,” Dandelion promises. “Or better.” Unsurprised Geralt’s fading fast on him, he supposes he’ll just have to take care of himself. Although he’s rather lost interest in a climax of his own, Geralt seems so peaceful it would be a shame to risk disturbing him in any way. He draws a blanket up over the sleeping man and drags on some clothes of his own so he can get them some new wash water.

While he’s gone Yennefer drops off the promised breakfast and sits next to Geralt in the bed for a few moments, looking over his arm and checking his ribs. He wakes up enough to open his eyes halfway, looking at her in confusion. “Go back to sleep, I’m just checking he didn’t break you all over again.”

Geralt huffs quietly, but his eyes close and he slips back into slumber easily enough. She presses a kiss to his forehead and grabs what she needs for the rest of her day. She looks back once, to make sure the blankets are up and over him properly and then she leaves. She passes Dandelion in the stairwell and stops.

“He seems fine,” her voice is carefully bland.

“I didn’t touch him like that,” he tells her, knowing why she might be angry with him. “I thought about stopping entirely, but I knew he’d take it wrong. If he can’t understand what’s happened, he can’t understand why I wouldn’t want to…” He juts his jaw forward a bit, determined not to be ashamed. He had enjoyed what he and Geralt did, those whimpers and moans, the gasps of pleasure, it had all been worth it. “I had to start somewhere, to show him they’d been doing it wrong, and I was safe. I had to start somewhere, and so I did. I listened to what you said, and I have to hope that’s progress. Or at least now, he’d understand why…”

She grins at him, and he realizes she had just wanted him to suffer a bit. He bites back a retort and instead gives her the universally accepted rude gesture, and heads back up the stairs. She laughs to herself, and heads down, collecting Sylvia from the common room to help her get her wares from the stables and then head to the market.

When Dandelion reaches the room, there’s food, and he eats about a third of it before he’s full. Not tired, but not ready to be fully awake anymore either, he crawls into bed beside Geralt, and snuggles up, pleased when Geralt shifts to make room and curl up around him. They stay like that until Geralt wakes up, belly rumbling, and drags himself out of bed to eat. The bard enjoys the view and doesn’t even try to hide that he’s staring. When Geralt turns back, pastry in one hand, apple in the other, he stares at Dandelion, surprised.

“What?”

“You’re glorious. Even all bandaged up,” his bard grins. “Now, hurry up and eat your breakfast, and find some clothes, let’s go out. Let’s enjoy the harvest a bit. Tonight they’re doing some sort of special ceremony or festival, and I’d like to write some songs about the experience. Not to mention I’m sure Yennefer wouldn’t mind if you stopped in for lunch. Oh, and your adoring crowd will be waiting, so you might as well go mingle now, let them get it out of their systems.”

“You’re an idiot,” Geralt tells him fondly. He finishes the pastry, bites into the apple so he can hold it with his teeth and tugs on both smallclothes and pants before biting through the section of apple so he can start eating it. Boots follow, and then his belt as he works his way through the apple. That finished, he tugs on his shirt, deciding to wear a jerkin and forgo any kind of doublet. Yennefer hadn’t left anything out for him. Hopefully trusting him to dress himself or simply not caring what he wore. There’s more food, and he’s starving. So he works his way through what he wants, sipping at water as he does. The bard primps and fusses with his hair and clothes through most of it, so when Geralt’s done eating he brushes crumbs from his face and hands and adds daggers to their sheathes around his body before deciding he’s ready to leave.

“Shall we then?” Dandelion asks him in a mock pompous voice that makes Geralt rolls his eyes and try to hide a smile. “Oh, you adore me, stop acting like you don’t think I’m funny and clever,” he teases, enjoying that he’s bringing out the more playful side of Geralt, now. He’d broken through whatever was stopping Geralt from fully relaxing with him the way he had Yennefer.

A few people are at the tables when they get down the stairs, and they get up to shake Geralt’s hand, or pat his shoulder. It’s deeply confusing to the witcher as they thank him for killing the ghouls. He’s never been treated like this before anywhere, and he lets Dandelion lead him out, feeling poleaxed.

They make their way around the town, and people stop to thank Geralt as he passes, and he has no idea what to make of it. No one’s treated him like this en masse before. When a woman walks up to them, Geralt finds himself wondering if he’s in some kind of dream. He can’t quite decide what the color of her hair is, it’s some kind of red. Or is it brown? Perhaps gold? Her eyes are definitely the greenest eyes he’s ever seen in his lifetime, like leaves in spring. He couldn’t have told anyone her age if he’d wanted to, she seemed old and young depending on how he looked at her.

She smiled at him, a crown of flowers and leaves braided into her hair and stood up on her tiptoes to gently press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. With that, she disappeared into the crowd.

“Just like in Posada,” Dandelion says softly. “Well, not quite, but. Did she say anything to you? Geralt?” He waves a hand in front of the witcher’s face irritably. “What did she look like to you? I couldn’t place her age to save my life, and was her hair red? I feel like she had red hair, and those eyes. Geralt? Geralt? Oh, you’re useless sometimes. Come on then, let’s go find Yennefer.”

He leads Geralt through the crowd, amused when people occasionally wish them well. Geralt seems oblivious to all of it, pupils dilated as he tries to figure out what’s happening. He feels odd. Good, though. Nothing hurts especially and he feels like if he stripped off his pants he’d find all the bandaging Yennefer had put on him was no longer needed. He just feels peaceful. Some of that dirtiness he’d been carrying around from the sorcerers felt gone. Geralt never knew why he always felt sick after using his body as currency, but he always felt sullied by it. Even the rare occasions when his bed partner wasn’t unpleasant.

When they reach Yennefer’s stall, he’s still drunk on the feeling of sunlight in his veins, and she gives him a bemused look.

“I see he’s met the local goddess, rumored to visit people on the last night of the harvest?” Yennefer asks, mostly joking. Then she catches him by the chin and tips his head down so he’ll look at her properly. Deliberately she focuses her abilities on him and finds perhaps her joke wasn’t wrong. “I heard she brings a sense of wellness, the calm before winter.”

“I suppose, she was beautiful but I couldn’t really tell, either. She had tanned skin, and also very pale skin, and then freckles, I felt like the sun was in my eyes and I couldn’t get a proper look at her. I’ve seen a lady of the fields before, but this was different.”

“Geralt, sit down out of the way here,” she guides him to the stool she uses when her feet get tired. Sylvia is helping her again, deeply considering her offer to move to Vengerberg with Yennefer when she leaves to go back. She’d get a more formal education and be able to potentially stop being a servant of any kind if she wished. Yennefer had promised her there would be no indenture contract, her room and board were not part of her wages. If she did her job, she’d see raises twice a year, and if she didn’t, she’d be dismissed and expected to her find her own way home.

Yennefer stands by the witcher for a little while, stroking his hair. It’s rare he feels so calm and content, and she has no desire to take that away from him. “They celebrate a bit like Belleteyn here,” she informs Dandelion. “I intend to celebrate with him.”

“Of course, it’s about…ah,” he hums awkwardly. Fertility rituals, the thing neither Yennefer nor Geralt will ever be able to have. “Well, I suspect as kind and gracious as they’ve been if we insulted the ritual by pairing men up they wouldn’t like us quite as much. Have to keep the locals happy.”

“I think he’d be pleased to see you join,” she adds carefully. “I think I wouldn’t mind sharing him after I’d had him to myself a bit.” She glances at Geralt and can tell he’s still not with them, completely oblivious to their conversation. He’s fine, she knows, or she’d already be working magic. His brain isn’t fogged he’s just calm. He deserves a little peace when and where he can find it. “I don’t think they would be too angry at us that way. If nothing else Geralt and I participating is almost a desecration, neither one of us can create offspring.” Her voice is less bitter than it used to be. It still hurts that she’ll have nothing to leave behind, no chance to have a lasting impact of some kind. Or at least that’s how she feels about it. “I don’t see how adding you to the mix for Geralt’s sake will make it any worse.”

“I was asked to play some of my more…indiscreet ballads, so once they’ve decided my contract is fulfilled, I’ll find you.” Then he realizes he doesn’t know Yennefer’s proclivities.

“Geralt prefers a little more privacy,” she tells him, as if reading his thoughts. “I know there’s a bonfire, and strawmen, and quite the pageant. He’s still worried about there possibly being ghouls left, so we’ll find a place near the trees. I highly doubt he missed any, just like I’m not sure how they got the drop on him, either.” It seemed so unlikely. Perhaps he really had been distracted. She won’t ask him, he won’t tell her. He doesn’t need her pushing him.

“Then I will find you among the trees and hope that he’s got his swords close to hand,” Dandelion tells her gracefully. “I’m going to fetch my lute and see about giving the crowd a sample of some of my older ballads, to remind them of my mastery,” he winks. “If he notices I’ve gone, let him know he’ll see me soon enough.” He pauses after taking a few steps away from them. “Is he alright? Truly?”

Yennefer looks at Geralt again. “He’s under no spells or magic,” she can see his medallion flat and still on his chest. When she puts an arm around his shoulders he leans into her with a soft sigh. “Are you in there?” she asks teasingly, rapping lightly on his head.

“Yes, Yen. I’m here.”

“He’s fine,” she tells the bard. “You can go back to your thoughts, darling,” she tells him gently. He nods absently, and she leaves him to his sit as she returns to help Sylvia. She’s glad she’d made up extra potions and things to sell, because quite soon she’ll be able to close up shop with her inventory cleared out. She could have portalled back to Vengerberg for more, but if she’s being honest she’s quite happy being done.

When the last glass jar is sold, she mentally runs up the sums for the coin they’d taken. She pulls a mix of silver and gold coins from the coin purse they’d been using and passes them to Sylvia discreetly under the stall. “I know Tobe will take some of it, as he’s your employer. Pretend I paid you less if you desire, so you can keep more.”

“Tobe’s a fair man, Madam Yennefer,” Sylvia tells her quietly. “He wouldn’t take any from me seeing as how you already paid him to borrow my time and services. So if you want to give me less coin on account of that…” her voice trails off.

“Of course not,” Yennefer tells her absently. “I have one last errand for you please,” she holds out a few orens. “Buy some new clothes for Niko, his are too small. He didn’t steal a single coin last night, I saw him. And pick up some treats for my horse and Geralt’s, too.” She thinks it over for a bit. “Have some pastries left in our rooms so if we’re hungry after we can eat, and whatever’s left, if you feel you’ve been paid fairly enough, spend it on Niko. If you feel I haven’t compensated you enough, then the extra is yours.”

Sylvia’s eyes widen in surprise. She covers the shock quickly with a curtsy, takes the coins, and puts them into a separate small purse she carries. She has several, and her pay from Yennefer gets distributed quickly and sneakily around her person as she ‘packs up’ the stall and adjusts her shoes and belt.

“Are you ready to walk around again, love?” Yennefer asks Geralt.

“We don’t have to walk around, there was that clearing….” he suggests with a raised brow.

“Save it for later,” she admonishes him. “We’ll participate in the festival,” then she pauses. “If you feel up for it.” It hadn’t occurred to her he might not want to. He’d wanted her at Belleteyn all those years ago even when she’d told him it wouldn’t change their relationship. Or their fights, it was just one night together. This time it isn’t like that.

“I’m up for it,” he tells her in a low voice, kissing her on the cheek. She knows he’d like to kiss her elsewhere, and certainly for longer than the time it takes to brush his lips over her skin. But she’d asked him repeatedly to stop ruining her lipstick and he had finally seemed to take the complaint to heart.

They wander the stalls, looking over new wares and revisiting old. Now that Geralt has plenty of coin he finds himself settling on a few new well-made knives. He’s seen their like before and knows them to be dwarven make but he isn’t sure the seller knows. The price is a little low to be fair, and so he doesn’t haggle much. He also purchases some silver to work into new armor should he need it. Amused to see a dark brown leather cuff with buttercups tooled into it, he haggles for that considerably harder. The woman finally parts with it for a little less than she’d intended, but not by much.

He knows full well Yennefer doesn’t need more jewelry, and so he doesn’t much try to pick her out anything. He does buy her lunch this time, at the very least, and a small posy of violets that are more sentimental than anything else. She’s still pleased with the gift and holds onto the flowers happily enough as they wander.

When they hear the bard they follow the sound of his voice to find him singing a teaching song to some children by a small fountain. They’re absolutely enraptured by him and his performance and seem to be catching onto the choruses that are to help them learn. Geralt and Yennefer wait until he’s done and ducks away from them to speak to him. Yennefer finds a child who she trusts to take her flowers back to the inn and presses a silver coin into the little girl’s hand. The girl and a few of her friends take off running, eager to deposit the flowers and return to spend their money on sweets and ribbons.

Geralt, in the meantime, has handed the bard the small piece of leather, feeling a bit silly. If he could blush he’d be red and he awkwardly shifts his weight from foot to foot as Dandelion pulls it out of the small cloth pouch he’d put it in.

“Oh,” the bard says quietly, stunned into silence. He looks up at Geralt and smiles at him, cornflower blue eyes crinkling happily at the corners. “Oh, this is lovely,” he says. It’s a simple and plain gift, not unlike Geralt’s love. But it’s deeply meaningful to them. The bard slips it on immediately, looking it over with a grin. “It’s perfect,” he smiles. He knows Geralt won’t take gifts or want them from him, but that years of sharing food and warmth are good enough. Geralt tends to understand actions better than words or tokens of affection. It had caused a bit of a disconnect Dandelion realizes, since he’d been waiting for Geralt to start sharing more words with him, and the whole time the witcher had been trying to tell him through deeds how he felt. “Thank you,” he looks around and then plants a kiss on the other man’s lips. There’s no one watching them. “I love you,” he smiles. He laughs a bit when Geralt gives him an uncomfortable look and shifts his weight again. If he can’t say it in public that’s fine. Dandelion knows how the witcher feels now. That’s plenty good enough for him.

“I have to keep circulating,” Dandelion tells him and kisses his cheek again before heading away to find a crowd to play to.

While Geralt is well accustomed to crowds, and noises, he is not accustomed to people noticing him and wanting to pat his back, or grip his shoulder, or press his hand. He clings to Yennefer and does his best to nod to people. He knows his smile is deeply unpleasant and as such tries to just pull up the corners of his lips a bit rather than frighten people. He mumbles the appropriate ‘don’t thank me’s to people, and wishes he understood it. They paid him. It wasn’t as if he did them a favor, he did what he was paid to do.

Yennefer can feel him getting more and more tense, overwhelmed by the attention, and slips an arm around his middle, keeping him moving until they find somewhere with less foot traffic. He’s more panicked by people being kind to him than he is having an entire village turn out to stone him after refusing him to pay him for his services. She looks up to see he’s continued to forgo his headband, probably because she hates it. His hair keeps getting in his face and he’s been helplessly pawing at it, she just hadn’t noticed with everyone coming up to greet them every few seconds.

“I can fix that,” she tells him, twisting a white lock around her finger gently. “Come, let’s sit,” she pulls him into the tree line.

“Yen,” he says hoarsely. “If I missed a single ghoul, this town is going to murder us slowly.”

“You didn’t. And I told you, we’ll be by the areas you knew the ghouls were, we can check. And if you really think I can’t just burn a ghoul into dust with the flick of my fingers, I’m offended.”

He sits down when he sees her raise her eyebrows and point at the grass, knowing that she isn’t taking him seriously.

“I am taking you seriously,” she tells him crossly. “I am also telling you we will manage. The villagers already told you the damn things fed recently, you went and stirred up their nest and killed a great many of them. Nothing had come back to gnaw on the corpses, so presumably there aren’t any left. And just in case, the alderman had a few goats and sheep tied up around so if you did miss any, we’d all hear the animals die, first. They’re all alive and fine, and enjoying fresh grazing.” She kneels behind him, he’s much taller than she is, and starts carding her fingers through his hair.

This isn’t something she would normally do; she’d just tell him to stop it. But she knows he’s worried about a fight coming and if it will settle him down, it will be worth it. She could just magic him but it feels wrong. Once she’s sure she’s gotten any tangles out, she sections his hair with her fingers again, brushing it over to one side along a straight part. Another few times just stroking his hair, she splits the side into two parts, and on the bottom starts a tight neat braid against his skin. She braids it out to the end so it will hold without a tie, and then does the same with the top section. She pauses to read him for a moment, and there’s almost nothing, he’s completely in the moment with her. She smiles and her hands shake a little when she smooths out his hair again and parts it on the other side to repeat the process with the side braids.

With both sides done, she starts at the top of his head, and can’t bring herself to finish yet, he’s enjoying the process so much. She takes a few minutes to just run her fingers through the loose hair before beginning to braid it from the top. She pulls the side braids in when she gets to them, braiding it into a neat queue that trails down the back of his neck. She pulls a loose thread from his collar and uses it to tie the hair off neatly. She leans forward and kisses his cheek when she’s done, and he startles. This isn’t something she wants to do all the time, but perhaps she can convince the bard that he loves it. Let him braid Geralt’s hair and stroke it and brush it out.

He turns and tips his chin up to her, and she leans forward and they kiss. He pulls her close, content to be in her arms and with her. When he starts to try and deepen the kiss and move things along, she pulls away gently.

“Save it for the festival. We don’t want to be rude,” she reminds him and he shrugs a bit. “I know full well you could manage twice,” she laughs at his surly expression. “It’s about being respectful of their customs. I much prefer people being kind to you.” She leans in and nips his lower lip lightly and cups his cheek. “It is not that long until the sun starts to set, surely you can manage until then?”

With one last kiss, he sighs and pulls away. “What did you do to my hair, anyway?” he asks, lifting a hand to carefully touch the sides.

“Provided we don’t ruin it during the bonfire, you’ll see it in a mirror in the inn.”

“Or the ghouls don’t rip it apart along with me,” he mutters.

“They are all gone, Geralt, why are you still so on edge? Come, let’s walk the tree line so you can see all the farm animals in a row, just fine.”

He heaves a sigh and holds out his arm to oblige her. “They won’t come out now, Yen, and you know it.”

“The forests are alive with animals again it was much quieter before.” It hurts a little that he can’t let himself relax at all. Can’t believe that all this kindness and peace won’t come crashing down on his ears the second it gets a chance. But after her time as a court mage her life had mostly improved and the world had been somewhat less cruel and unpredictable to her. The town they had met in had had its issues, but in all honesty, she hadn’t done anything to make it better because why should she? No one was doing anything to help her. The snow queen, riding her sled through the town and piercing hearts with shards of ice…

“If something is too good to be true,” he grumbles.

“It probably is, I know. It’s a festival time, people are in a good mood. It happens. People can be kind while it suits them. Best we move on soon after this, their welcome will wear out eventually. But it hasn’t even been a week. And you solved a problem plaguing them for decades. Despite what it cost you in your own blood and bone.”

Unable to come up with a rebuttal he lets her choose where to wander. The night of the actual ceremony, the market areas are crowded with a few times the number of people that it had started with. Uncomfortable with so many people constantly brushing against him and all the noise assaulting his senses, he clings tightly to the sorceress, unwilling to be separated by the crush of bodies. It’s not as if he couldn’t manage on his own. He has, several times. He will again. He just hasn’t felt right in this place since his meeting with the sorcerers.

Yennefer fends off a few brave women who think they might want to get too close to Geralt with nothing more than a hateful glare. She might tolerate the bard on rare occasion, but otherwise she has no intention of sharing him. He hates when she’s possessive, but half the time he doesn’t even notice when she’s doing it anyway. And like as not, he doesn’t much want random strangers feeling up his bottom or planting a kiss on him when he’s least expecting it. She purchases some food and a skin of juice before leading him to a quieter area. They eat, and she’s grateful for the break from the crowd, too. Emotions are high, and people are charged and ready for the celebrations to begin. The bard must be in his element. Hopefully not causing any trouble. She won’t help.

Exhausted, he realizes he hadn’t slept much, between fighting the ghouls, getting back, being healed, and going to sleep only to wake up a few hours later…no wonder he can’t manage himself well. Yawning, he eats his share of their repast without much comment. When it seems like Yennefer is done as well, they share the juice between them and he kisses her once. “Do you mind sitting for a while?” he asks her softly, understanding if she won’t. If she needs to do other things he’ll go back to the inn and rest there for a bit. He’ll need to go back and get his swords anyway, just in case.

“Not at all,” she tells him softly. She resettles herself comfortably and allows him to put his head in her lap. She runs her fingertips over his cheekbones and along his jaw gently. Perhaps this is why they fight. Neither one can stand to be laid bare by the other. How dare the world think there was a chink in her armor, or a way in to hurt her? And how better to show the world it is wrong than to hurt the one person who deserves it least? And by proxy hurt herself, because she doesn’t deserve him either. Until they implode again, she allows herself to run her fingertips over his skin gently, watching him doze off in her lap, comforted by the gentle touch.

As the sun starts to fall on the horizon, she wakes him carefully. Dandelion had stopped past a few times, more amused than hurt Geralt was asleep and therefore unable to appreciate his singing.

“Is it time?” he asks, waking with a start when Yennefer gently shakes his shoulder.

“It’s time to go get your swords,” she tells him. “And my legs have fallen asleep. I tried to move, but the pins and needles were so bad I didn’t bother. You’ll have to help me up.”

He doesn’t apologize, she didn’t ask him to. He stands up and stretches slightly raising himself onto the tips of his toes and pushing his chest out as he stretches his arms behind him. With a little shake of his head he holds out both hands to her, prepared to take her weight. She wasn’t lying about her legs not working, and she can barely stand up on her own. He shifts his grip from her hands to under her arms, as she almost crumples right back to the ground with several choice invectives. He smothers a smile, rather than risk a kick when her legs are working properly again.

“I could carry you,” he offers.

“You’re enjoying this entirely too much. Give me a moment and then I’ll try to walk.”

He waits patiently, unable to think of anything else he’d rather be doing right then other than being with her. Pretending to be human together. Her first steps are painful and awkward but as the blood flow resumes properly, things even out. “Better?”

“Yes, much,” she admits, lacing her fingers into his and walking back towards the inn. “Will you be alright getting through the crowd?”

“I think so, now that I’ve had some sleep.” It shouldn’t bother him any, he’s survived so many crowds before. They make it back together and Yennefer brushes out her hair before changing into a different dress. Something simpler. Still her classic black and white motif, but with less skirts and ruffles and things that would get in the way or get dirty on the ground. Once he has his swords belted on, she thrusts a blanket at him. He can carry that, too. She can see he’s pulled some elixirs from his kit and wishes he wasn’t so convinced he hadn’t done his job properly. Although she’s learned to trust his instincts, she’s fairly sure this is just because people are being nice to him and so he’s convinced something awful is going to happen. She can’t blame him. People are usually horrid. 

As they’re walking back to the clearing where all the annoying parts of a harvest festival will take place, he thinks he sees the woman from before several different times. But he’s not sure, because he always feels like he’s got sunlight in his eyes when he sees her. And she never quite looks the same. He’d point her out to Yennefer, but he’s not sure he’d be pointing at anything at all. She smiles at him, on occasion when she sees him staring, he thinks, but he isn’t sure. He kisses the top of Yennefer’s head, breathing in her perfume to ground himself. It doesn’t matter what the lady from before was, or if he sees her again.

He half listens to the alderman give the speech as he scans the trees for signs of movement. He can hear the animals, all still alive.

“Perhaps you’re so on edge because with your heightened senses and this many people all losing their heads over a peasant tradition has got you spun ‘round?” she offers him.

“Yen,” he says reproachfully.

“I know you can smell some emotions on people, Geralt. Perhaps lust and stupidity is one of them.”

He smiles slightly, his expression rueful. She’d been teasing him, not mocking him.

“All these people waiting to get drunker than they ever get any other time of their lives and then to fuck their own brains out until they fall asleep…and you can’t feel it?” she asks.

He considers the question. There’s definitely the smell of human excitement. He notices a pretty blond woman at the same time Yennefer does. The woman blanches when she sees Yennefer’s expression and hastily goes in search of another partner.

The alderman has moved on to doing some kind of ritual with some food, and there’s a fire, and some wine…and Geralt loses interest again. Still nothing in the trees other than some goats. He jumps when he feels fingers under his shirt and realizes Yennefer is toying with him. He hadn’t even noticed when she’d pulled the end out of his pants.

“We’ll walk the tree line, if that will make you happy,” she tells him. There’s tables of food and drink, and plenty of bards preparing to take their turns on the stages. There’s fires to be circled, not leapt through, and plenty of other quaint little traditions going around.

“I suspect nothing will have me stop feeling unsettled,” he tells her. All the same once the alderman leaves the small stage and a bard takes his place, he prowls away from the crowd into the trees.

Yennefer sighs, and heads to a table to secure some food for them. And some wine. She recalls his earlier aversion to ale and while she assumes it’s temporary, there’s no reason to distress him more. None of the animals seem remotely concerned, and Geralt is forced to conclude he’s jumping at shadows. He inwardly winces, thinking of what Vesemir would say if he could see him right now. The forest is alive with noise in spite of the humans celebrating at its edge. The evening is cool but not cold, and he stops suddenly at an odd sound. It takes him approximately half a second to realize that it is not a ghoul-like sound at all, but two humans who have started the fertility celebrations early. If he could blush, he would have. He’d almost gotten quite close and had had a hand on the hilt of his sword, to boot.

With a shake of his head he goes to find Yennefer. The goats will scream as they’re being eaten so it’s not as if he won’t have plenty of warning. She’s waiting for him by the fire and the play of shadows and lights across her skin and hair turn her into a creature of smoke and legend instead of a human woman. His eye mutations allow him to see the violet of her eyes but the black of her dress with the accents of white in the darkening light against the fire…he sighs in pleasure. She only has eyes for him. Her hair is like coal and he lengthens his stride to reach her sooner, kissing her hungrily. She kisses back and he wishes she’d drop whatever she was holding and put her hands on him instead. The thought pulls him out of himself enough that he realizes she’s holding something for a reason, and she would have dropped it if she’d wanted to. That would be like her.

It’s food and wine he realizes. He’s been wanting her all day and now dinner is going to make him wait yet longer.

She laughs and then covers her mouth with her forearm as best she can to hide the smile. “Oh, I’m sorry. I was trying to stay out. I know you don’t like it. It’s so hard with you so close, and your thoughts being focused on me. We can eat after,” she reassures him, giggling. He feels embarrassed but when she steps in close so her body brushes against his, pressing her hips close to his he realizes she wants him, too. The feasting and carousing is near full swing as the full moon rises in the sky over them and he looks around for a relatively quiet area. He’s never been much for other people watching. This time, he leads her, a hand on her small waist as he directs her to a spot that’s somewhat secluded.

“The blanket?” she asks him when he stares at her wondering why she still hasn’t put anything down yet. He jolts and realizes he still has it. It had been tossed over his shoulder the whole time. She laughs again delighted that she can drive him to distraction. He spreads it out and she puts the food and wine down to help him.

“Making it lie perfect won’t matter once we get started.”

“Presentation is everything,” she drawls, and he realizes she is doing this to torment him a little. He reaches out and pulls her to him, pinning her under him on the blanket to kiss her. She puts up a mock fight, squirming against him just a little but spreads her legs so he can settle between them comfortably.

He finds himself moving against her with their clothes still in the way. Almost embarrassed he stops. They aren’t children humping each other for the first time behind the hay. She looks up at him and smiles and heat travels up his body, starting in his groin. He knows that look. They kiss differently and she begins working his shirt free of the waist of his pants before undoing them. She just needs to push them down over his hips.

By the time Dandelion is able to come find them, they’ve finished round one, eaten a little and had started up all over again. “Ah, you saved me some food,” he says gratefully kissing Geralt’s cheek and leaning over to grab one of the pieces of meat. “I’m famished, it was quite fun. I received a little cash purse, too, in appreciation. I think we’ve done rather well here,” he rambles and then looks at his companions properly. Yennefer is in Geralt’s lap and they had clearly been in the middle of something. “Ah, right then,” he says awkwardly.

With a glance at Yennefer for permission first, Geralt reaches out and drags the bard by the front of his shirt into a kiss. Dandelion responds ardently and forgets he’d ever been hungry for anything other than the taste of the witcher’s lips. The next several minutes seem to pass in a blur as Geralt releases his shirt and palms his cock through his pants. As promised Yennefer mostly ignores Dandelion, she’d said she’d put up with sharing Geralt for the evening, but she has no interest in touching the bard herself. Geralt proves quite capable of handling them both, working her dress loose enough to display her breasts. As he kisses down her neck she continues to move against him, and his breathing gets more ragged as he pulls back to breathe.

He yanks the bard closer unceremoniously and clamps a hand on his hip as he climaxes against Yennefer with a near silent moan. She’s a bit louder but knows he’d rather not draw attention to them and muffles her cry against his shoulder. They stay close for a few seconds before she pulls away, kissing him gently. She slides off of him and he chokes slightly at the sudden absence he feels when her body leaves his.

“I’m still here,” she’s right next to him. He’d just been so caught up in all of it. “Take the bard for a romp, I’m going to get more wine,” she promises, kissing him hard and drawing away, her dress already back up over her chest.

“Geralt,” Dandelion breathes, admiring the braids in his hair. “I like this, I like this a lot,” he grins, running his hand over Geralt’s and up his arm. “Perhaps, perhaps we could move this hand off my hip now, and put it to better use somewhere else?” he suggests and Geralt grins and releases him holding his hand out as if offering Dandelion a seat. The bard chuckles and slides his leg over Geralt’s, settling down against his thighs. “Bit of a shame really, it’ll be a while before I can get my hands on you properly. Hardly matters, that’s not the point, is it? It’s just being with someone you care about, isn’t it?”

A fond smile creases Geralt’s lips and he leans forward to kiss the bard into silence. His hands work the bard’s pants loose enough to get a hand down the front of them. Just being part of any form of sex with Geralt earlier had been enough to make the bard eager. It doesn’t take long before the bard is doing everything not to come just yet, because he’s not ready for it to stop. Geralt’s calloused hands are oddly gently against his skin and he’s not moving his hand with the sole intent of getting it over with, he’s taking his time. Getting to know what will make the bard shudder against him gasping for breath and what makes his cock twitch against his palm. He finds himself desperately clinging to the front of Geralt’s shirt as a wave of pleasure rocks his entire body.

Footsteps make them both turn but it’s just Yennefer. “You’ve taken my seat,” she says dryly.

“Just keeping it warm for you,” he gasps, panting a little. “I’ll be up in just a moment, but he’s gone and turned my legs to jelly with his witcher magic and wiles.”

She snorts and settles on the blanket against Geralt’s side, fingertips moving in slow lazy strokes down from his collarbones to his hips.

“Not yet,” he whispers, “A little time.” He knows he could ask her to use magic to help him last as long as anyone could like, but he’d rather this was natural. There’s no elixirs preventing his body from doing what he wants. He just needs a few more minutes of time and he’ll be ready again. He’s not sure how, and soon he’s not sure he’ll be able to manage at all, not if they’re going to be near taking turns.

She kisses his cheek in response, unperturbed. They have all night. Some people will change partners multiple times. Some groups will break into what could only be described as orgies. Some will stay with their spouses. Others will have stayed home with children who had no business being anywhere near any part of this. When another man approaches them Yennefer scares him off, too. Dandelion looks at her, unable to see the expression on her face but he can imagine it.

“My gods, as wonderful as you are Geralt, I can’t imagine how anyone would think you needed another partner right now.” He takes a careful breath and looks at Yennefer. She turns slowly to face him and he quails a bit. “I’d like a chance with him before you wring him dry,” he braves to tell her, sliding off Geralt’s lap.

“She’d best not ‘wring’ anything,” Geralt says in mock alarm.

“Would you like it if he was in your lap this time, and I was to your side?” she asks the witcher and his pupils round out as he looks at her. She’s serious, he realizes. He swallows hard, considering.

He shakes his head a little, “I don’t want to hurt him,” he tells her. Then looks at Dandelion and shakes his head again, brow furrowed.

“It’s not going to hurt me,” Dandelion tells him. “Do you remember this morning? Did I hurt you?”

“No.”

“It’ll be a lot like that. Only I’ll be the one having most of the fun. Not that I minded, I do fully intend to have your cock in my mouth again before the sun rises.”

Geralt chokes and coughs as Yennefer laughs.

“Since he’s so eager, I will refrain,” she points out. They’ll also need to find something to wash up with, at least a little bit. “I’d hate to see the poor thing so overused it couldn’t rise for days,” she teases, catching Geralt’s earlobe gently with her teeth. His breathing hitches and she rests her hand against his pulse as she kisses the other side of his neck. His heart is racing, for a witcher at least. “I’ll go fetch and carry one last time, while you two work this out,” she informs him. He nods to show he’s heard her, but the bard is doing _something_ with his mouth and Geralt’s other earlobe that is making it impossible to think.

“It won’t hurt me,” Dandelion pulls away, gently letting his fingers play up and down Geralt’s cock. “One day, maybe, I’ll even show you in turn how it feels. And if you never want that, I never will. But if we go slow, it’ll be alright,” his voice drops lower. “Do you remember how good you felt with my mouth on you and fingers in you?”

Geralt nods, glad he can’t blush. If they could have bottled that one specific mutation and sold it they wouldn’t have needed to be witchers. “Yes,” he says hoarsely when he realizes the bard wants verbal confirmation.

“I have oils, I have you. I have experience. If it makes you uncomfortable I don’t want to do it, there’s other things I can teach you.”

It’s rare Geralt feels inexperienced in any arena but the bard is making gooseflesh erupt all over his body. His cock twitches against Dandelion’s clever fingers and he realizes he’d forgotten to keep breathing. “Perhaps I’d like to learn all your tricks?” he counters, trying to act less like an idiot.

“Then I will guide you through them all,” Dandelion promises with a smile that sends heat low into the witcher’s belly.

“We can start with this,” Geralt nods, surprised to find he trusts the bard. He trusts what they did earlier is a sample of what’s going to happen. “Are you up for more?” he asks, lightly tracing his fingers over the bard’s still soft cock.

“It’ll take a bit to work up to, I’ll be ready soon enough,” he promises, kissing Geralt. Dandelion raises himself up on his knees to push his pants down and Geralt helps him push them yet further out of the way so they won’t stop him from being able to straddle his lap. They continue to kiss as Geralt finds himself running his hands over the bard’s body. He’s well built, not as lithe or delicate as he’d seem with his ridiculous clothes and beautiful eyes. The bottle of oil is going to be empty within days, Geralt’s sure. If it makes it another two nights, he’ll be shocked.

“May I borrow your hand?” he asks and holds his out. Geralt gives it to him only to find the bard slicking up his fingers first and then his cock with the oil. He moans at the contact below his waist and wishes that this wasn’t a process or that they’d started earlier. Dandelion guides him patiently until finally Geralt is inside him, the bard resting comfortably in his lap. He laughs some when he can feel Geralt twitch in anticipation, unable to help himself. “It takes a bit to adjust, you’re not exactly small.”

Geralt busies himself kissing Dandelion, nervous that things are suddenly going to change. But there’s no hint of pain in the bard’s gaze or bearing. He really does seem to be fine. He’s fully hard against Geralt’s stomach, and there will be stains on his shirt later.

“Ready?” the bard asks playfully and Geralt nods, shifting his legs a bit to accommodate them both better. When Dandelion lifts himself up and then slides back down Geralt barely holds back a whine. He finds himself gripping the bard’s thighs, feeling the muscle move as he starts moving up and down.

There’s no sense of time on a night like this, and Geralt has no idea at what point Dandelion moves one of his hands from his thigh to his groin. All he knows is that he’s happy to bring the bard more satisfaction. The noises he’s making and the way his body shudders as he starts to get closer. Geralt decides next time he wants to be in control of this. He wants to make Dandelion feel like this without help, wants to watch him come apart with the witcher moving inside him. Already overly sensitive Geralt comes first, and speeds up his hand on Dandelion’s cock, bringing the other man with him a few minutes later at most. He looks up, suddenly aware there’s more to the world than just them. Yennefer is a small distance away, waiting. She’s got some kind of cloth and what might be a waterskin.

She isn’t bored, she’d had no interest in watching them, but hadn’t felt any jealousy either. Quite the turn. She’d expected to want to claw Dandelion’s eyes out of his head the entire time, but it hadn’t happened. Geralt’s fascination with the bard had been too charming for her to care. There was a couple she’d been watching, waiting to see if one of them broke a bone while trying positions they were not in any kind of shape to try. Disappointingly other than a leg cramp that broke them apart, nothing interesting happened. She passes the bard the cloth and the water.

Gently, she kisses Geralt and he relaxes into her, glad there’s no heat just yet. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to manage for a while. The moon’s fully risen into the sky and the night isn’t even half over. They have time. He half leaps out of his skin a few seconds later, startling her too.

“What the fuck?” she snaps, not at him, but at the world in general, looking around for whatever had spooked him so badly.

He’d gotten the bard to jump and half fall over.

“The water’s cold,” he complains sheepishly and Yennefer laughs.

Dandelion starts laughing, too. “I thought I’d hurt you!” he says indignantly.

“You great big baby,” she shakes her head, still chuckling. “You’ll claim to feel nothing and know no pain, but a little chilly water to your favorite body part and you scare us all half to death. I thought you’d been bitten by a snake or stung by a scorpion.” Not that it would do more than inconvenience him for a few hours.

“I left you a mess, it’s only fair I do something to clean you up,” the bard points out.

“Perhaps a warning, next time?” Geralt points out with a quirked brow.

“Perhaps I’ll know the water is cold before I touch you with it,” Dandelion grins impishly. Geralt shudders again when the bard meets his eyes and resumes wiping his issue off the witcher’s stomach and groin. “I love watching you squirm,” Dandelion says in that low voice Geralt had never heard before that night. The one that makes the hair on his neck stand up and his skin feel tight.

“Enough,” he says hastily when he can see Dandelion going to pour more water over the rag. “It’s good enough.”

“Alright then,” he agrees simply, watching as Yennefer leans into Geralt’s side and he automatically puts an arm around her.

“Didn’t you miss dinner?” Geralt asks.

“I did. Oh, I did! And you distracted me from eating! Shameless creature,” Dandelion teases, sounding far more like his usual self. He avails himself of the food while chattering a bit about the other bards he’d heard play and which ones were good and which ones should be beaten with their own lutes.

“Don’t tell me you’re worn out?” Yennefer tells him, feeling his head drop to rest against hers.

“Only a little.”

“Are you alright?” she’s referring to his injuries. She hasn’t seen that the lady had already healed them. If he’s being honest Geralt hadn’t noticed either, and most of them are obscured by his clothes. It would be hard to know.

He shifts a bit, considering the answer. “A bit sore,” he concedes.

“Sore as in your cock is sore, or sore where I’ll have to bandage back up you later?”

“If you two can’t keep your hands off it long enough, you’ll have to bandage it later.”

She flicks his leg in response but can feel him grin against her hair.

He tucks himself into his pants but doesn’t bother to fasten them. When he tries to lean back he realizes his swords are still belted against his back. Easing the buckles loose he shifts them off his body and lays them under the blanket so that when he lies down they’ll be right under him. He wants to feel them at all times. They’d been stolen once and it had been quite the ordeal to get them back.

“If you’re tired,” Dandelion tells him, “just lie down.” He has a feeling that while Geralt might be willing to indulge them again later, he’ll be doing it with his hands and mouth rather than his cock. Of course he doesn’t know if he wants more. Geralt looks peaceful, eyes lidded heavily and lips reddened with kisses. There’s no reason to disturb that.

“We can go back to the inn, if you’d prefer,” Yennefer offers.

He shakes his head. “I just need a few minutes,” he tells her. She smiles because she knows he’s going to fall asleep the minute his head hits the blanket. Pushing gently on his chest, she pulls away from his arm and he lays down. She lets him settle before shifting her body down alongside his, resting her head against his chest. He curls an arm over her shoulders again and she can feel his breathing deepen.

Done eating, Dandelion looks around briefly, some couples have flamed out, sleeping in the grass. Others left to return to their beds. And some are quite energetic, or perhaps getting a late start. Most people had taken to shadows rather than stay out in the open, so it’s not as if he can see much. They’ve got a relatively pitiful bush blocking them from the view of most people once they’re lying down. He feels a bit of chill and can see Geralt watching him, like he’s waiting for something. Realizing he’s exhausted, he understands what Geralt wants. Mindful of his lute, he carefully settles down against Geralt’s other side, unsurprised to feel a strong arm curl over his shoulders. Yen’s arm is high on Geralt’s chest, her hand curled loosely under her cheek. Rather than risk disturbing her, he slips his arm over the witcher’s waist.

Geralt stays awake just long enough to see what the alderman had promised if the night was auspicious enough: shooting starts. More than he’s ever seen in his entire life. He breathes a soft sigh, and falls asleep before he can so much as think of a wish, much less make it.

He has all that he wants as it is, what more could he possibly ask for? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea how this got this long. I don't know if I care. I got stuck for a while b/c I am 100% convinced I should stop trying to make smut work, but. After many minutes spent staring at the screen wondering if I overused the word "cock" but then thinking of all those horrible thesaurus posts, and bad things to do in smut posts... and... like, a million other things I got paranoid and just let it alone. So. 
> 
> If you're wondering, the goats live till morning, they're fine. He got all the ghouls. They go back to the inn before sunrise, and they curl up together again for a while.   
> Hope you guys liked the end, sorry it got so long, and sorry it took a while to post it. (If you like stupidly long fics then you might like the one that's going to have 2 -3 parts and already has like 11 chapters?... so. ... ) 
> 
> Feel free to come say hi on tumblr, too. I will gladly scream about the witcher with you all day.

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  Let me know what tags I missed, warnings I missed. Typos. 
> 
> you can find me on tumblr: stressedspidergirlsfandomblog, where I post a bunch of fic stuff and just random fandom crap, along with a completely different opening for this.  
> Also, if you like Yen and Dandelion taking care of Geralt, you'd probably really like my longfic I'm working on. The Road not Taken (yes a reference to Robert Frost) or my series of ficlets. 
> 
> As always, I love comments, they keep me going. Let me know what you thought. If you happen to like beta'ing some more R-rated stuff hmu because I could use some help with smut.


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